Soul Catchers

by Tony Moyle

  “Good. That’s one less for me to find.”

  In the distance two figures marched towards them down the hill. They strolled in single file down the track, between the cottages and onto the plain that separated the small town from the sea. One was dressed in black, and the other in red. David watched until he could make out their faces.

  “It looks like it might be my lucky day. Nash, what say we go into the house for a while?”

  - CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO -

  CAT OUT OF HELL

  Brimstone mentally checked his to-do list as he dragged his short frame down the long tunnel network that led to the front gate. Task one: remove unknown object from highly complicated celestial machinery. Task two: rescue a gaggle of senior demons from level zero, currently trapped by a ‘potentially’ awkward ox. Task three: locate the world’s most elusive soul, masquerading as a shrew, and do something mean to it. Task four: find a quiet place to put his feet up and ignore the telepathy system forever.

  The problem with to-do lists is the number of tasks very rarely decreases, even after you’ve apparently completed one. To-do lists have this annoying habit of collecting new entries without you noticing. They started out with half a dozen entries and then multiplied to several hundred the moment you turned your back. No matter how hard you worked your way through them, like a rabbit on Viagra, more hopped into your eyeline. Brimstone was about an hour from deciding to-do lists were a stupid idea.

  The Soul Catcher was in a state that could only be described as Bedlam. Chaos and irrational behaviour had overcome the lesser demons that worked there. It wasn’t normal. One demon had placed his head inside a wicker basket and was sitting gibbering to himself. Another was running around in circles attempting some bizarre spiritual ritual. The final member of the crew was staring intently into the glass bulb of the Soul Catcher, his head circling around like he was following a Catherine wheel.

  “What’s going on here!” shouted Brimstone at the top of his voice.

  The wicker-headed demon wobbled over to him clutching his makeshift balaclava for dear life. “Help us. We can’t get it out. It keeps miaowing at us.”

  “What are you talking about, you cretin?”

  The demon attempted to point at the Soul Catcher from under his hat but unhelpfully just indicated a rather uninteresting part of the wall.

  “Now listen up,” called Brimstone to the three mentalists. “I demand that you desist with this total lunacy at once. Do you hear? Whatever it is we always deal with it.”

  The demon nearest the machine, whose head seemed incapable of resting in the same place for any length of time, uttered, “I think it’s hypnotised me.”

  Inside the bulb a soul was rotating with the fluid motion of a sock in a washing machine. Every time it passed the captivated lesser demon, it let out a strange shrill like a cat being electrocuted. The normal souls, who’d had the misfortune of their owner dying on the same day the third Earl of Norfolk had decided to try an untested shortcut, attempted to swim away from its centrifugal pattern. Souls normally weren’t this antisocial. Normally they liked nothing more than the company of another soul rubbing their electrical feelings against them. They’d quickly learnt this soul was not one you wanted to cuddle.

  “Who does it belong to?” he said, clear that no one was likely to offer any assistance until normality had returned. “Oh don’t bother…”

  He moved to the control panel. The list on the left of the screen, documenting the occupants inside, showed one entry in bold font. No one liked bold typeface. It shouted, ‘Look at me, notice me, I’m important, even though I’m probably a public relations trick to make you buy something.’ The Soul Catcher used it to highlight souls it had had the experience of meeting before.

  “Roger Montague. You don’t belong here. You should be in a catsuit somewhere downstairs.”

  Hell did not recognise titles, unless it was Mister of course.

  “You there,” Brimstone shouted to the demon in the hat. “Go to the storeroom and see if we have any cats left.”

  After a short time the demon returned, shaking his head.

  “It has to be a cat otherwise he won’t fit,” demanded Brimstone. “Reincarnates are fussy like that. Anything in the general category of cat family? And maybe take off the hat so it’s easier to look.”

  “I think I saw a lion in there.”

  “Better than nothing.”

  The demon returned with a deflated plastic lion draped over its back like an amateur big game hunter returning from the savannah.

  “Attach it to the nozzle,” instructed Brimstone.

  After a complicated sequence of buttons, levers and keys were pressed, pulled and tapped, the souls stopped rotating and made a gurgling noise, like the plug being pulled out of a bath. The rogue soul was sucked down the plughole and inflated into the lion. It left the device with a bang. The lion skidded off into the distance, hoping friction would hinder its progress before face met rock. It finally stopped and the recipient proudly took in his new attire.

  “An upgrade,” he said to himself in a bold, matter-of-fact tone. “No spider here, I see. So sad. I told her it was quicker.”

  The conveyor belt, that led away to an analyser used to sort vessols into the relevant levels, trundled along in anticipation. It wouldn’t be any use for this. There was no conveyor that led to level zero and no need to analyse the soul. Brimstone considered the next task on his to-do list comfortable that he could tick off the first. How wrong he was.

  The wicker basket-wearing demon approached the lion.

  “Don’t worry about him. I’ll take him down.” Brimstone sighed. “I’m going down there anyway.”

  “You’ll have to catch me first,” replied Roger as a steaming, three-foot lump of rock approached.

  “Oh really?!”

  “I know forty-eight types of martial arts, four of which don’t require me to move.”

  “Do you?” said Brimstone. “Well, I know eleventy-three ways of melting vessols and one way of spotting big show-offs. Do your worst.”

  “I warned you,” said Roger, flexing his muscles. “You’ve never seen skills like mine before. You’ll struggle to see me move I’m so fast.”

  “Well, I can’t see you moving now. Maybe you’ve already started!”

  “Ah well, you won’t know, will you? That’s the point. Even I don’t see my moves they’re so fast and devastating.”

  “In your own time.”

  “You asked for it.”

  The cat-cum-astronaut-cum-member of the aristocracy-cum-lion did some elaborate tail swishes and shook his mane as if auditioning for a new shampoo advert. He jumped up and down on the spot and roared weakly. Brimstone got bored, removed a lump of lava from his knee pit, and lobbed it in the lion’s direction. It narrowly missed.

  “He’s not really worth it,” came a voice from behind the three-foot demon. “We think he’s broken.”

  A collection of animals had congregated behind Brimstone in a rabble-like formation. At the front was a large, black spider with brown stripes down its back. Behind him was a monkey holding a glass vase full of deep blue electricity. To his left a white pigeon with different coloured eyes was smiling at some unclassified achievement. Finally, although it was hard to make out because he was hidden behind the monkey, a rodent of some sort was arguing with itself.

  “Who the fuck are you?” said Brimstone.

  “An army,” said Elsie.

  “I don’t think four counts as an army,” replied Brimstone.

  “Five,” said the lion proudly.

  “I think you might count as minus one.”

  The other animals nodded.

  “You need a lot more for an army. You’re more like a mob,” said Brimstone.

  “Well, we outnumber you and your demons by one, so we have the advantage,” said Vicky.

  “You’re still counting the lion,” said Brimstone, having quickly done the maths.

  “The same, then.
”

  “It’s not just about the numbers. You’re just some slightly inflated plastic, while we are ancient demons with very few morals.”

  “One of them is wearing a hat over their face, and the other two can’t stop spinning around or rotating their heads,” replied Elsie accurately. “Plus we’ve already dealt with all the other demons.”

  “Oh, you mean the fact that my colleagues appear to have been restricted to level zero by an animal that may or may not have genitals.”

  “And a sloth,” added Vicky.

  “Oh, that’s different, then. I’ll have to be even more careful when I go down and break them out in case I’m chased by a creature that would take the rest of eternity to get to me.”

  “Ha ha…smokey freak…you can’t stop me…smelly breath…are you well?”

  The shrew scuttled forward, leaking sparks of electricity as he approached his old mentor.

  “John? So you’re behind this. I should have known you’d be up to something. There’s just no killing you, is there?”

  “She…cough…must…irritable bowels…go…suck it…home!”

  “Who?”

  “Sexy…Faith…shouldn’t objectify girls,” he chastised himself.

  “I thought you’d have learnt by now that you’re no good at playing God. Neither is God, as it happens, but there’s still no vacancy,” said Brimstone.

  “It is…cough…my mission…splooge…part of my revenge on you…”

  “Part of your revenge?”

  “Yes…bite me…many on my list…he’s helping.”

  “Oh, you think that David is also delivering on his assignments, do you? He isn’t. The Devil knows who he is. He will find him. He will shoot him, as he did you, John.”

  “Not shot…codger…car crash…bloody pale girl…it hurt me…”

  “What are you talking about? I have read your whole book, John, and not one of your previous fifty-one ancestors died in a car crash.”

  John had no concept of rational thought these days. Only anger or love. Empathy or hate. Pain or pleasure. His mind raced around his hollow soul looking for signs that might help him remember. He found no pain associated with the accident. Fear also drew a blank. The only emotion with anything close to a semblance of a connection to the incident was pride. Why would he be proud of dying? What reasons were there for positivity? It might just be his fractured point of view, but burning to death in a car accident must be bad, surely?

  “David…cough…will get revenge,” said John confidently.

  “He’ll get dead and you’ll soon be reacquainted with him.”

  “If you don’t let him send back the shadow,” said the lion defiantly, “I will have to use my special demon-suppressing tactics. Amazing ones no one has ever seen before.”

  Brimstone believed no one had seen them before because they were less likely than a fish winning Crufts. Brimstone did, though, see an opportunity. The demons didn’t want the shadows here. Perhaps John would come quietly if he agreed to send this one back. It was a win-win situation.

  “John, I will send her back if you give yourself up and send your ‘army’ back to level zero.”

  There was a great deal of resistance from within the ranks. This wasn’t what they signed up for. The most dissent was taking place between John’s competing personalities.

  “Don’t do it…cough…it’s a trick…bugger…it’s the right thing to do…NEVER…save yourself…stop it…I love her…sissy…she doesn’t love you…shut up…she’s the victim…loser…you’re the victim…arse squeezer…we have come so far…nut job…they always beat you…revenge…sending her back will be…jubblies…”

  “Is that a yes or a no?” replied Brimstone scratching his head, an occupational hazard when both your hand and head were packed full of oozy, hot, molten stuff.

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Loser.”

  “YES.”

  “GAY…NO.”

  “Which is it?!” shouted Brimstone, losing his patience. “John, I’m going to take your very next answer as a binding verbal contract.”

  “YENO.”

  “Verbal binding contracts are only valid if they are offered by an animal of feline extraction. Fact.”

  “SHUT UP,” shouted everyone, including the spinning demons.

  “YES,” shouted the positive part of John before the other part had a chance to offer a repost.

  “Oh…you…bastard.”

  *****

  The ox swung from a tree, assisted by several different forms of attachment. One looked black and sticky. It had the consistency of the ‘gook’ heavy smokers frequently release from their lungs accompanied by a very hefty ‘hooowwwik’ noise. Another was made from mud and seemed purposely fixed to the creature’s mouth. Three small darts were protruding from its rear end and Mr. Fungus wore a smug expression as a result. The sloth was still several metres away. They’d deal with him if, or when, he got close enough.

  Asmodeus, back in his normal humanoid form, started to climb the ladder that led up to the ceiling. It would have been far harder to climb with three heads and only a winged lion for a body. When he reached the top he unclasped the trapdoor which fell down towards him. This did not improve the view. A thick impervious spider’s web had been expertly woven over the hole. Neither light nor air could escape. Asmodeus returned to the group.

  “Who is good at cutting?”

  “Mr. Volts,” said a few of the crowd in unison.

  “I’ll be sure to offer him the critique if we ever see him again. Let me rephrase the question. Based on the demons that I’m talking to now, who is the best at cutting?”

  “Probably Mr. Shiny,” said Fungus.

  “Shiny, up you go, there are some spider’s webs to be cut.”

  Mr. Shiny reluctantly acknowledged the groups’ unanimous nodding and approached the ladder. It was difficult to judge the speed of his progress, given his unique ability to camouflage against his surroundings. What the other demons could see was a spindly, sharp-edged forest scene moving rung by rung up to the top. What Asmodeus and Shiny had failed to notice was the web was not the only surprise in store for them. Mr. Shiny drew a sharp hand across the silky web. It immediately sliced through the middle of the sticky barrier and released a torrent of water through the trapdoor.

  The deluge knocked Shiny from the ladder and emptied a waterfall onto the others. Shiny hit the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. Most of these pieces were never seen again, washed away by the flood to various hidden parts of the forest biome.

  “The bastards filled up the lake,” shouted Asmodeus.

  “And it’s seven years’ bad luck,” said Aqua.

  *****

  Brimstone took the glass vase from the gibbon and clumped over to the outlet in the base of the machine. Over the millennia he’d removed plenty of shadows from it, but rarely had he sent one back in the other direction.

  “I assume you have some co-ordinates,” he said.

  “Absolutely,” replied Vicky. “You didn’t see me up in the oak tree when you were getting excited about the sapling, did you?”

  “No. Do you know why?”

  “Because demons are stupid,” said Vicky.

  “Well, I’m starting to believe some of them are. The reason I didn’t notice you is because you are small and inadequate. You think you’re so much better than everyone else, but the truth is you’re a bloody spider. You might not like demons or cats or gibbons. But do you know what? No one likes spiders. No one,” stated Brimstone.

  Vicky looked as dejected as a foot-long spider can.

  “It’s not true,” said Roger.

  “It’s not!” said Vicky.

  “No. Not at all. My old friend Buzz Aldrin used to love spiders.”

  “Thanks, Roger, it means a lot to me,” said Vicky.

  “Only Buzz, though. I literally can’t think of anyone else who likes them,” added Sir Roger.
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  Vicky’s ego deflated once again.

  “The co-ordinates,” repeated Brimstone.

  “It’s called Bryher Island.”

  “I need more than that. I can’t pick a person out with just ‘an island’. Iceland’s an island, too, you know. Have you seen it? It’s bloody huge.”

  Brimstone huffed over to the computer to set the vectors. When the information regarding the island’s population density came up on the screen he was forced to eat his words. “I think we’ll be fine. We have a one in eighty-five chance of getting it right. Boys, empty the tank.”

  The three lesser demons, only one of which seemed to have regained any composure, helped to remove the remaining souls from the bulb, placing them into their vessols and watching them trundle off on the conveyor. When the Soul Catcher was totally empty, Brimstone released the stopper from Faith’s vase. She quickly retreated from it into the empty machine.

  “This is it, John. Once she goes back you have to surrender. I have your word on that…sort of.”

  “You do…cough…I’m not talking to you anymore…trollop…fine by me…”

  John knew what happened next. He’d done it himself. The machine would be reversed, effectively changing it from ‘catch’ mode to ‘throw’ mode. How John had managed to achieve it, given his ability to argue with himself over the simplest of questions, was a mystery. Yet, there was David down on Earth, living for him all over again. Brimstone made the adjustments and a small red light flickered on the dashboard. He threw the lever.

  The machine shuddered. It was being asked to blow when all it ever did was suck. A noise like someone whistling without teeth filled the air and with one final big gulp, a pulse of energy burst from the barrel. Faith was on her way home with odds of slightly better than one percentage she might find it.

  “It’s done,” said Brimstone. “Give in.”

  “Why would he do that?” came a voice from the edge of one of the tunnels.

  *****

  The demons dried themselves off as best they could. Apart from Mr. Aqua, who appeared to be larger than before. Primordial had started to collect up the broken shards of mirror but stopped when they moved around squealing. He was more concerned about the mess than his broken colleague.