Spike closed the door carefully. “A demi-devil or Junior demon or something, sent to precipitate mankind’s fall into the eternal river of effluent that is the bowels of hell. Let’s see if we can’t get a make on this guy. Have a look in the backyard and tell me if you see anything unusual.”
I peered out the window as Spike looked around the room.
“I can see the old carpet piled up in the carport,” I said, “and an almost-brand-new washing machine.”
“How does the carpet look?”
“It seems perfect.”
“Figures. Look here.”
He pointed to an old cookie jar that was sitting on the mantelpiece. The lid was half off, and clearly visible inside was a wad of banknotes.
“Bingo!” said Spike, drawing out the hefty wad. They were all fifty-pound notes-easily a grand. “This is demi-demon Raum, if I’m not mistaken. He tempts men to eternal damnation by the sin of theft.”
“Come on!” I said, mildly skeptical. “If Lucifer has everyone that had stolen something, he’d have more souls than he’d know what to deal with.”
“You’re right,” agreed Spike. “The parameters of sin have become blurred over the years. A theft worthy of damnation has to be deceitful, cowardly and loathsome-like from a charming and defenseless pensioner war veteran. So what Raum does is stash the real Major Pickles in a closet somewhere, assume his form, leaves the cash in plain sight, and some poor boob chances his luck. He counts his blessings, has a good few evenings out and forgets all about it until Judgment Day. And then-shazam! He’s having his eyeballs gouged out with a spoon. And then again. And again…and again.”
“I…get the picture. So this Raum guy’s a big deal, right?”
“Nah-pretty much a small-timer,” said Spike, replacing the money. “First sphere, tenth throne-any lower and he’d be in the second hierarchy and confined to hell rather than doing the cushy number up here, harvesting souls for Lucifer and attempting to engineer the fall of man.”
“Is there a lot of this about?” I asked. “Demons, I mean-hanging around ready to tempt us?”
Spike shrugged. “In Swindon? No. And there’ll be one less if I can do anything about it.”
He flipped open his cell phone and dialed a number, then pointed at the floor. “You better get those grippers down if we’re to finish by lunchtime. I’m kidding. He doesn’t want a carpet; we’re only here to be tempted-remember all that stuff in the backyard? Hi, Betty? It’s Dad. I’ve got a five-five in progress with a tenth-throner name of Raum. Will you have a look in Wheatley’s and see how to cast him out? Thanks.” He paused for a moment, looked at me and added, “Perhaps it wasn’t Felix8 at all. Perhaps he was…Felix9. After all, the linking factor between the Felixes was only ever his face, yes?”
“Good point,” I said, wondering quite how Spike might be so relaxed about the whole demon thing that he could be thinking about the Felix problem at the same time.
“Betty?” said Spike into his phone. “I’m still here… Cold steel? No problem. Have you done your homework?…Well, you’d better get started. One more thing: Bowden said he’d do the washing for us, so get all the curtains down… Love you, too. Bye.”
He snapped his phone shut and looked around the room for something made of steel. He picked up the nail gun, muttered, “Damn, galvanized” then rummaged in the toolbox. The best he could find was a long screwdriver, but he rejected this because it was chrome-plated.
“Can’t we just go away and deal with Raum later?”
“Doesn’t work like that,” he said, peering out the window to see if there was anything steel within reach, which there wasn’t. “We deal with this clown right now or not at all.”
He opened the door a crack and peeked out.
“Okay, he’s in the front room. Here’s the plan: You gain his attention while I go into the kitchen and find something made of steel. Then I send him back to the second sphere.”
“What if you’re mistaken?” I asked. “He might be suffering from some-I don’t know-rare genetic disorder that makes him grow hooves.”
Spike fixed me with a piercing stare. “Have you even heard of such a thing?”
“No.”
“Then let’s do it. I hope there’s a Sabatier or a tire iron or something-it’ll be a pretty messy job with an eggbeater.”
So while Spike slipped into the kitchen, I went to the door of the front room where Major Pickles was watching TV. He was seated on a floral-patterned settee with a cup of tea and a slice of fruitcake on a table nearby.
“Hello, young lady,” he said amiably. “Done already?”
“No,” I said, trying to appear unflustered, “but we’re going to use the nail gun, and it might make some noise.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right,” he said. “I was at Tobruk, you know.”
“Really? What was it like?”
“My dear girl, the noise-and you couldn’t get a decent drink anywhere.”
“So a nail gun is no problem?”
“Nostalgic, my dear-fire away.”
Spike hadn’t yet reappeared, so I carried on. “Good. Right, well-Hey, is that Bedazzled you’re watching?”
“Yes,” he replied, “the Brendan Fraser version-such a broad head, but very funny.”
“I met him once,” I said, stalling for time, “at the launch party for the Eyre Affair movie. He played the part of-”
“Thursday?”
It was Spike, calling from the kitchen. I smiled and said to Major Pickles, “Would you excuse me for just one moment?”
Pickles nodded politely, and I walked to the kitchen, which was, strangely enough, empty. Not a sign of Spike anywhere. It had two doors, and the only other entrance, the back door, had a broom leaned up against it. I was about to open the fridge to look for him when I heard a voice.
“I’m up here.”
I glanced up. Spike was pinned to the ceiling with thirty or so knives, scissors and other sharp objects, all stuck through the periphery of his clothing and making him look like the victim of an overenthusiastic circus knife thrower.
“What are you doing?” I hissed. “We’re supposed to be dealing with the Raum guy.”
“What am I doing? Oh, just admiring the view-why, what do you think I’m doing?”
I shrugged.
“Thursday,” added Spike in a quiet voice, “I think he’s on to us.”
I turned to the door and jumped in fright because Major Pickles had crept up without my realizing. But it wasn’t the little old gent I’d a seen a few moments ago; this Pickles had two large horns sticking out of his head, yellow eyes like a cat’s, and he was dressed in a loincloth. He was lean and muscular and had shiny, bright red skin-a bit like those ducks that hang in Chinese-restaurant windows. He also smelled strongly of sewage.
“Well,” said Raum in a guttural, rasping voice that sounded like a box of rusty nails, “Thursday Next. What a surprise!” He looked up. “And Mr. Stoker, I presume-believe me, you are very unpopular from where I come from!”
I made a move to thump him, but he was too quick, and a moment later I was thrown to the ceiling with a force so hard it cracked the plaster. I didn’t drop; I was held, face pointing down, not by any knives or scissors but the action of an unearthly force that felt as if I were being sat upon by a small walrus.
“Thursday,” added Spike in a quiet voice, “I think he’s onto us.”
“Two unsullied souls,” growled Raum sadly. “To His Infernal Majesty, worthless.”
“I’m warning you,” said Spike in a masterful display of misplaced optimism, “give yourself up and I’ll not be too hard on you.”