The Demon Curse

by Simon Nicholson

  “Impossible…a thing like that…” She glanced back and steadied herself against the wall. “The Islanders—they’d never do anything like it!”

  “Of course not, but something’s happened, and something pretty nasty too,” Arthur said. “Even the doctor said it looks like ‘some demonic force.’ He certainly didn’t have any other explanation, did he?”

  “Doesn’t mean there isn’t one to find,” Harry said. They had reached the bottom of the stairs, and he saw the shutter of another dumbwaiter. He stopped, checking the map in his mind.

  “Look!” Billie cried.

  She had reached a window at the end of the corridor. It was the same window they had passed on the way up, but its panes were shaking even more violently. Harry joined her and looked down at the crowd again. It was huge, sprawling all over the steps, and it seemed to be gathering even more people from the surrounding streets, adding to its mass. Oscar Dupont was still delivering his speech, and his bald head tilted back, allowing Harry to see that tiny mouth curving in a grin. Those who protect us will fall from power; those who attack will take their place… All around Dupont, Harry saw the crowd’s faces white with rage, and down at his sides, he felt his hands tighten into fists.

  “They’ve got an explanation, that’s for sure!” Billie jabbed a finger down at the crowd. “Down there, they think they’ve got it worked out, nice and simple. A demon curse put on him by the Islanders, that’s all they’re thinking—and how’s anyone going to prove them wrong? Look at that crowd! It’s twice the size already. More people joining the whole time. Who knows what they’ll do if that Oscar Dupont keeps driving them on—Harry, what are you doing?”

  Harry had run over to the dumbwaiter. Deep in his chest, he felt his heart quicken and tiny flickers creeping over his body, making their way all over his skin. Good. He often felt these sensations before one of his tricks, and it made sense that he was feeling them now as he prepared for the task ahead. A little nervousness is a good thing—it helps with concentrating, with focusing the mind…

  He worked quickly, opening the wire shutter and peering into the polished wooden box inside. He turned the crank on the wall, the box lowered, and he saw the chain from which it hung and the empty shaft lined with pulleys and ropes. He put in his head and peered up. A narrow tunnel of darkness led upward, and toward the top of it, Harry made out a glimmer of light. The shutter in Mayor Monticelso’s office, two floors above.

  “Harry, didn’t you hear Billie? What are you doing?” Arthur asked. “That’s a dumbwaiter. It’s meant for transporting cups of tea and trays of dinner and—”

  “And the odd other thing.” Harry pushed his head in further and then wriggled his shoulders into the darkness too.

  “It’s too small for you!” Billie’s voice echoed after him. “Anyway, we’re meant to be heading down to the lobby.”

  “There’s a clerk waiting for us and everything!” Arthur’s voice echoed too.

  “Tell them I got lost.” Harry couldn’t help smiling in the darkness.

  And he pulled the rest of himself into the narrow shaft, closed the shutter behind him with a boot, and scrambled upward.

  Chapter 7

  “Harry?”

  Billie’s and Arthur’s voices echoed up through the darkness. Harry kept scrabbling, his boots and fingers finding holds. He gripped brackets, pulleys, ropes. Cement crumbled as he dug his fingernails between bricks. Sucking in lungfuls of dusty air, he tilted back his head and stared up.

  He could see that faint glow of light two floors above. He peered and saw crisscrossed shadows, the sign of a metal grille. He thought back over everything he had observed, checking that he had pieced together his map of the building correctly, that he was heading for the right place. He kept climbing, digging his fingers deeper into the brickwork of the shaft, only for a clump of clement to fall away, so that he slipped.

  He shot down through the dark. He flailed at the shaft’s sides, tearing skin from his hands, but his boots found a hold, and he jolted to a halt. His muscles shook; sweat crawled through the roots of his hair. Concentrate. Brick dust kept showering down on top of him, and he winced as it entered his mouth, coating his tongue. But he was already climbing again, finding new holds, making his way up the shaft.

  He stared at the brickwork. He thought about how, just a few inches away from his fingertips, uniformed servants and council men would be hurrying past smoothly plastered walls, with no idea about the small, dust-covered figure on the other side. Unseen, unknown, just like a trick—the thought gave him a new jolt of strength, and he picked up speed, pulling, tugging, levering himself upward until his head drew level with the wire shutter. It was latched on the other side, but Harry easily wiggled a finger through the mesh and flicked the latch. The shutter rattled up, and Harry tumbled into the office, brushing brick dust from his clothes.

  His boots sank into a deep-pile rug. He breathed in the air, fresh and clean after the shaft but still heavy with odors of leather and polished wood. The curtains of the office were drawn, but they glowed with light, the New Orleans sun blazing through their thick threads. Harry made out the door on the other side of the room, still ajar and with the red ribbon running across it. Keeping to the shadows, he peered into the room beyond, the room in which he had just been.

  “He is secure! The ropes will hold!”

  “The steam chamber! Down in the mayoral bathroom!”

  “Perfumed steam will envelop him, pinioned though he may be! This way, gentlemen!”

  The voices floated through the gap in the door. Harry saw several orderlies trundling a wickerwork wheelchair toward the door. Tied into it with more ropes was the trembling mayor, wearing a cotton robe. The wheelchair swept out, followed by Dr. Mincing and Madame Melrose. A door slammed, and the room fell quiet. Harry swiveled around and started searching the office.

  The tiniest trace, the tiniest sign. As his eyes flicked about, Harry remembered the New York magicians he had watched time and time again—how a barely noticeable bulge in a sleeve or flutter of a finger had revealed their secrets to him, taught him tricks. He crouched down, scanning the office, which was in exactly the state Madame Melrose had described. There were papers everywhere. A few of them still lay on a mahogany desk, but the rest had been hurled all over the room, along with ledgers, books, and split-open files. Harry checked a few of the papers. Letters to hospitals, orphanages, charities. He crept around the desk to where a chair lay tipped back. Next to it, there was a patch of papers that were crushed into the rug. Harry saw that the patch formed the shape of a human body, its arms and legs outstretched.

  This was where he lay. Harry crouched over the crumpled documents. He saw other damaged papers at various points around the room. Thrown there by the thrashing arms, perhaps? He carried on examining the human shape, picking up each of the papers. He noticed, as he lifted one of them, a pen.

  He picked it up. It was an ebony fountain pen, similar to Arthur’s although with a gleaming gold nib and not remotely leaky. It was just the pen itself—there was no sign of the lid. Harry lifted more papers, searching for it. He crouched down, scanning the surrounding rug, but there was still no sign of it. Odd—but then he saw it, a tiny gleaming shape nestled beside the carved foot of a chaise longue, right on the other side of the room.

  He walked across and picked the lid up. It too was ebony, its metalwork gold. He rotated it in his fingers and stared back at the pen itself. Fifteen feet away at least. He trod back to the desk and mimed the business out, holding the lid in his hand and swinging it around, trying to calculate the speed that would be required to throw the lid as far as the chaise longue. Very fast indeed. Still, the mayor had been in the grip of a fit, so it was quite possible. Harry trod back to the chaise longue, replaced the lid where he’d found it, and searched around in the glowing light for another, more useful clue. And then his head turned so fast that the musc
les in his neck hurt.

  Not a clue. But something worth noticing.

  A faint chime of metal against metal. Harry glanced around, tracing the sound to the far side of the office, where there was another door. He heard the noise again, more chiming, and knew what it was. Keys, jangling on a ring. He waited and heard a different noise, a far more alarming one.

  A key, digging into the lock.

  Harry stumbled back across the room. He heard the key turn, the mechanisms of the lock’s insides grinding. He heard the latch spring just as he was scrambling back into the dumbwaiter shaft. The door opened, and he dropped down into the darkness, holding on to the edge of the hatch. He braced his boots against the bricks, keeping his eyes just at the level of the hatch, allowing him to peer back into the office.

  Two figures edged into the room, shrouded in shadow. But Harry had already seen enough to recognize them.

  A dagger beard. And two yellowed eyes.

  Chapter 8

  The two men edged into the room. For the first time, Harry saw them close up. Their clothes were old and scruffy, their faces dirty, their hair full of grease. Daggerbeard was thicker set, and he kept himself in front of Yelloweyes, who was a scrawny figure, a thick scar curving down one of his cheeks. Daggerbeard carried a ring of keys, swinging from a finger. Must be the ones he stole.

  “Are they gone?” Yelloweyes whispered, staring across the office toward the door of the mayor’s bedroom.

  “Of course. That’s what we heard the servants saying, wasn’t it?” Daggerbeard pocketed the keys. “Steam treatment at noon every day.”

  “Then let’s finish the job off,” muttered Yelloweyes as he held up the sack.

  It hung from his hand as they headed for the door. Harry noticed that he was holding it some distance from his body as he edged across the room. Carefully, the two men stepped around the scattered papers, pushed open the door, and stepped over the red ribbon that ran across it. Harry waited and then pushed himself upward so that he was leaning slightly out of the shaft and able to get a better view. His boots dug into the brickwork, his fingers gripped the hatch’s edge, and he felt his muscles ache from the effort of holding the position. But like that, he was able to see through the open door into the next room and glimpse what the men were doing.

  They were standing over Mayor Monticelso’s bed. The body was gone; only ropes and rumpled bedding remained. Yelloweyes dangled the sack over where the mayor had been, his scar altering its shape as a smile formed on his face. Daggerbeard crouched down and peered at the floorboards just beneath the bed. He rummaged in his pocket and took out a small chisel. He glanced up at Yelloweyes, who stood there waiting with the sack.

  “The spot…”

  “Finish it…”

  “Put it under the floorboards…”

  “Let it do its work…”

  Daggerbeard dug the chisel’s tip between two of the boards beneath the bed. He levered, and the nails gave. Harry leaned even further forward, craning his neck, and saw the end of a floorboard lifting. Yelloweyes was crouching down now too, the sack in his hand. Daggerbeard’s breathing grew labored as he tugged at the chisel, steadily levering the floorboard higher. Yelloweyes was opening the sack and peering inside. Harry kept watching, and as he did so, he remembered what Brother Jacques had said and what his friends had said too, in the boat earlier that day.

  A real demon curse…set upon Mayor Monticelso by who knows who…

  He lost his foothold and slipped.

  Brickwork crumbled, rattling away down the shaft. Harry slithered back down into the hatch but felt a sharp pain in his back and jolted to a halt. His eyes were level with the bottom of the hatch, and he saw, through the doorway, that the two men had spun around. He tried to wriggle down inside the hatch, out of view, but he couldn’t, and the pain increased when he tried. Reaching a hand behind himself, he discovered that his jacket had snagged on one of the pulley mechanisms, and a fold of skin was trapped with it. He tried to struggle free but then froze as he saw Daggerbeard appearing in the doorway to the office.

  Harry’s eyes, trapped at the level of the hatch, stared at the bulky figure, who was no longer holding the chisel. Instead, he was sliding a very different tool from one of his sleeves.

  A heavy iron hook, nearly a foot long.

  “It was in here,” Daggerbeard muttered over his shoulder.

  “Well, check it out then—and be quick about it!” Yelloweyes called back.

  The hook’s point was jagged, and it gleamed in the light. Daggerbeard gripped it in his fist as he scanned the room. Yelloweyes joined him, and together the two men’s heads turned, their gazes moving steadily around the office. Harry tried to stay as still as possible, but he knew the whole top half of his head was in view. The shadows protected him, but that was all. His whole body shook; sweat gathered in his clothes. He watched the gazes of the two men move steadily toward him. The hook in Daggerbeard’s hand, he noticed, was lifting…

  “Come with me, gentlemen! I have need of further equipment; I will show you what to bring.”

  Daggerbeard and Yelloweyes spun around. Dr. Mincing’s voice could be heard, and footsteps too, pounding nearer. The hook vanished back up Daggerbeard’s sleeve, and the two men were racing back into the mayor’s bedroom. Harry started struggling to free himself of the pulley, but he could still see into the next room. Daggerbeard was snatching up his chisel; Yelloweyes prized at the floorboard, trying to push the sack through the gap, but it wouldn’t fit. The footsteps were even closer now, and with a growl of frustration, Daggerbeard stamped down on the board and pulled Yelloweyes after him. They thundered back through the paper-strewn office and were gone, their hunched shapes vanishing through the door at the end of the room. Back in the mayor’s bedroom, Dr. Mincing could be heard bursting back in.

  “Quickly, gentlemen! Follow me!”

  Harry finally unsnagged himself and scrambled downward, his boots and hands finding holds. Cement crumbled around him, but there was no danger of being discovered now, and he doubled his speed. Once again, he stared at the brickwork of the shaft and thought about the smoothly plastered rooms and corridors on the other side, and about how, somewhere among those rooms and corridors, two men would be racing along, making their escape with their stolen keys and mysterious sack. Find them. Peering down, he made out the faint glow of the next hatch, and he scrambled even faster until he reached it and swung straight out. Collapsing onto the rug, he bounced immediately up, brushed cement, dust, and some bits of rubble from his clothes, and then ran down staircases and corridors until he reached the front lobby. Skidding across the marble floor, he slammed straight out through the front doors and onto the steps. He ran straight down them, past Oscar Dupont and his chanting mob, and headed across the square to where Billie and Arthur were waiting for him.

  “Nice of you to join us.” Billie tutted as he stumbled up. “Just like you, running off without saying what you’re doing and—”

  “Did you see them come out?”

  “Who?”

  “Them! The men!” Harry struggled for breath. “A beard like a dagger…two yellow eyes…I saw them before… They—”

  “Harry, are you all right?” Arthur clutched his arm.

  “We need to follow them. You go around and watch the front, Artie. I’ll check around the side and see if there are any other doors there…” He tried to keep talking but had to suck in more air. “Billie, you run around the other way and—”

  “A beard like a dagger? Two yellowed eyes? I don’t suppose that’s them, right there?”

  “Quick! Follow me!” cried Harry.

  The two mysterious men were hurrying down a nearby street. Harry raced after them, Billie and Arthur running along beside him. He ran across the street, swerving past a cart, but the men were too far ahead, disappearing among the crowds.

  “Let Billie do this
!” Arthur spluttered. “She’s the one who knows her way around New Orleans, doesn’t she?”

  Billie had already swerved off, darting down an alleyway. She leaped over a garbage can and ran around a corner. When Harry caught up to her at the alley’s end, he looked out to see Daggerbeard and Yelloweyes hurrying down a different street, but much closer than before.

  “Nice shortcut, Billie!”

  She was already running up a fire escape. Harry climbed after her, Arthur following too, and a minute later, they were stalking along the flat roofs of the street’s buildings, keeping their eyes on the two men, clearly visible among the people below. Harry’s breath was back, and the story of what he had seen in Mayor Monticelso’s office burst out of him as they marched past chimney stacks and leaped between roofs.

  “You think they’re behind it, Harry?” Arthur asked.

  “Of course they’re behind it! Who knows if it’s a demon curse or not, but whatever it is, they’re doing it! Why else would they be trying to bury something right under the bed where he’s lying?”

  “But what was it?” Billie demanded. “Why were they putting it down there?”

  “Don’t know.” Harry leaped onto the next roof. “That’s why we’ve got to follow them, find out who they are.”

  “Fair enough, but it’s a good thing that we can follow them from up here,” said Arthur. “If you’re right, and they did do something that caused Mayor Monticelso to end up in the state he’s in…well, I’m just saying it’s sensible to follow at a safe distance. We could be talking about men wielding a dark magical curse, after all. Actually, that seems extremely likely, if you ask me.” He swallowed and kept walking. “Then there’s the hook you told us about. How big was it again?”

  “They’re heading for the river, Billie! Look!” cried Harry, pointing at the men, who were swerving off in a new direction. But Billie was already darting across the roof. Reaching another fire escape, she ran down it with her friends. Halfway down, Harry saw Daggerbeard and Yelloweyes reach a low wall, jump over it, and run out along a wharf. A tangle of moored boats floated beside it. The two men got into one of the boats, a skiff, and cast the rope loose. With the flick of an oar, they were heading out onto the Mississippi, a sail already racing up the skiff’s mast and catching the wind.