Location, Location, Damnation

by Nick Moseley

  'For God's sake,' growled Trev, steadying himself.

  'What's happened while we've been away?' asked Granddad.

  'Not much,' replied Oscar, yawning and stretching, 'except for one strange thing. Corbyn's been here, would you believe.'

  'Yes I would believe, considering I've found out that Corbyn's working for Kolley, who summoned the demon,' said Trev, with no small amount of smugness.

  Oscar cocked his head to one side. 'Kolley summoned the demon?'

  'Yes.'

  'Alastair Kolley? The retail business equivalent of the village idiot?'

  'Yes. Although we think he's got help.'

  'He'd have to. Who told you this, anyway?'

  'Corbyn, under a blood oath,' Trev replied, quickly sketching out the evening's events and what they knew about Kolley's motives.

  'Hmm. Well our vampire friend definitely had a girl in the car with him when he arrived, but she wasn't with him when he left,' remarked Oscar after listening to Trev's story.

  'He's gone already?'

  Oscar nodded. 'He was barely here for five minutes, in fact. Drove in and round to the back of the house, then back out again while I was still trying to sneak to a better vantage point to see what he was up to. The girl, Sarah was it? She wasn't with him, so I assume she's inside.'

  'That means we have to go in and get her,' said Trev.

  Oscar gave him an incredulous look. 'You are familiar with the concept of a trap, aren't you? You know, those things that are often used to catch dumb animals?'

  'Yes, yes, I know it's a bloody trap.' Trev shrugged. 'Doesn't change the fact that Sarah needs help.'

  'You won't be much help to her lying on the floor in a pool of your own blood like some Rorschach ink-blot,' Oscar shot back, 'which is the likely outcome of you barging in there waving your weapons about.'

  'Precisely what we've been trying to tell him,' said Agatha.

  'I was going to try and be a bit sneakier than that, which is why we're lurking in the bushes instead of ramming the main gates with my car,' said an exasperated Trev.

  'We ought to wait for the Custodians to send some back-up,' said Oscar with a shake of the head. 'I don't like leaving someone in there any more than you do, but I don't think we've any real choice.'

  'Easy to say when it's not your fault she's in there in the first place.'

  'Trevor,' said Granddad in an admonishing tone.

  'Yeah yeah, I shouldn't blame myself, and so on.' Trev shrugged. 'I'm going in to get her, that's all there is to it. I'm not forcing any of you to come with me.'

  Oscar's face split into a feline grin. 'What the hell, I'm game. After all, I'm small enough to be able to get away easily if it all goes pear-shaped.'

  'Very well. I think this is a bad idea, but if you're determined to go, I'll come with you,' said Granddad, putting a hand on Trev's shoulder.

  'I think you're being very noble, but also very foolhardy.' Agatha observed. She paused, and then nodded. 'The former is reason enough to help you.'

  'Thanks, people,' said Trev, giving his comrades a relieved smile. He looked down at Oscar. 'What's the security like?'

  'Cameras on the gates,' the cat replied, 'but other than that the grounds are pretty much clear. There are no guards that I've seen, although the house is bound to have alarms of some sort. Can't really tell you anything about the interior, I've never been inside.'

  Trev nodded. 'All right then. I'll cut a gap in the railings, and we'll get as close as we can using the trees for cover before making a move to the back of the house. I'll get us inside, then hopefully Oscar and Agatha can use their spooky senses to give us some idea of where the demon's lurking.'

  'Once we get that close, even you should be able to sense where it is,' said Oscar. 'It's a crap plan, frankly, but as I can't think of a better one it'll have to do.'

  'And on that enthusiastic note, let's go,' said Trev. He drew Tyrfing and activated the weapon before pressing the blade against the base of one of the railings. The metal groaned for a moment, then parted with a soft clink. 'Hold it for me,' Trev said to Granddad. The old man reached out and gripped the railing while Trev cut through it at the top, laying it carefully to one side once it was free.

  Trev shut Tyrfing down and holstered the sword. He turned sideways and squeezed himself through the gap in the fence, dropping to the grass on the other side. Granddad slid through to join him, with Agatha and Oscar close behind. Trev held his breath, alert for any sign that their presence had been detected. The grounds remained silent and deserted.

  'Go on then, somebody say it,' Trev murmured.

  'Say what?' asked Granddad, puzzled.

  Oscar caught Trev's drift. 'It's quiet,' he said.

  'Yeah… too quiet,' Trev replied in his most portentous voice.

  Oscar chuckled. 'Had to be done, didn't it?'

  Trev managed a tense smile. 'You know it. Now that we've observed the formalities, let's get moving.'

  He led the way through the trees, keeping as low as he could and sticking to the most deeply-shadowed areas. Oscar scurried along next to him, his head up and ears twitching. Granddad and Agatha followed at a short distance.

  They reached the tree-line unchallenged and stopped again. An area of lawn, interspersed with flower-beds, lay between them and the house. There was no cover, and the lighting around the building meant that there were no shadows to conceal an approach either.

  'What do you think?' Trev asked Oscar.

  'There's nobody lurking in wait for us outside the house, as far as I can tell,' the cat replied. 'I can feel something inside, though. A presence. An unpleasant presence.'

  'The demon?'

  'Has to be. To my senses it's like the proverbial fingernails on a blackboard. It just feels out of place, wrong. It doesn't belong in this world.'

  'Can you sense Kolley or Sarah?'

  'Someone has to be in there with the demon, but I can't tell you any more than that.' Oscar looked at Trev. 'You all right? You're shaking like a shitting dog.'

  'Adrenaline,' Trev shrugged. 'And possibly just a touch of terror.'

  'Want to turn back and wait for the cavalry?'

  'Oh, absolutely. Not going to, though.' He drew The Twins and fired them up. Immediately his fear subsided, replaced by a wave of calmness. 'Ah, now that's more like it.'

  Tread carefully, lad, said Caladbolg. It's near.

  'I know,' replied Trev. 'Looks like we're about to find out if I'm up to this or not.'

  'Come on then.' Oscar stepped out from the trees and headed for the back of the house. Trev took a deep breath and went after him.

  They walked across the lawn at a brisk pace, alert for any sign of danger. Now that they were out of the cover of the trees, the area of lawn they had to cross suddenly seemed much larger. Despite the influence of the vapour weapons, Trev could feel his heart thumping in his chest. Any second now, he thought. Just as we reach the mid-point between the trees and the house, that's when they'll strike. But he was wrong. They made it to the back wall of the house unchallenged.

  Trev glanced up at the windows. The upper two floors were completely in darkness, and only a couple of rooms were lit on the ground floor. The rear door of the house stood slightly ajar, a shaft of light leaking through.

  'Looks like they're happy for us to let ourselves in,' said Trev, trying to suppress an involuntary shiver.

  'Can you feel it yet?' asked Agatha quietly.

  'The demon? I can feel… something.' Trev thought for a moment. Like Oscar had said, it was as if there was something there that shouldn't have been. The presence was jarring, chafing away at the edges of Trev's perception. The feeling was unsettling on a very deep level, bypassing the artificial calm generated by The Twins and threatening to freeze Trev where he stood. 'Stay behind me,' he said, taking up a position in front of the door.

  He checked over his shoulder, nodded to Granddad, booted the door open and rushed through.

  The hallway beyond was empty. Tr
ev set himself in a defensive posture and took stock of his surroundings. From what he could see, the housekeeper had obviously been given some time off… maybe a year or so. The parquet floor was scuffed and marked with footprints, and there were dirty shoes, coats and other odds and ends scattered about haphazardly.

  Two doors led off the hallway. One was at the far end, and Trev assumed it led into the main part of the house. The second door was recessed into an alcove on the right-hand side; it was opened inward a little, and beyond it Trev could see a staircase leading down. Ignoring it, he walked to the far door and tried the handle.

  'What a surprise, it's locked,' he said. His eyes rotated around to the door in the alcove. 'They're down there, aren't they?'

  'You know they are,' replied Oscar. 'Waiting for us to come down and play, no doubt.'

  Trev shuffled toward the door on wobbly legs. The demon's presence was very strong now, and Trev was finding it a struggle to resist the urge to run screaming from the house and hide under a bed somewhere. He steeled himself and pushed the door all the way open.

  'Same drill, stay behind me,' he said, and started down the stairs.

  The steps were narrow and steep, and with his hands full holding The Twins, Trev had to tread carefully to avoid stumbling. He made it to the bottom and found himself in a small cellar with bare brick walls. The room was empty apart from a pile of bricks which appeared to have been removed from the far wall, revealing a doorway into another cellar. From within there came a strange, shifting light.

  Alastair Kolley, clad as usual in a well-tailored suit, was standing in the doorway with his back to the stairs.

  'Freeze, Kolley!' said Trev, wincing at how reedy his voice sounded.

  'He's not actually moving, Trev,' observed Oscar.

  Trev rolled his eyes. 'All right then – don’t move, Kolley!'

  'Better,' said Oscar.

  'You took your time getting here,' said Kolley, without turning to face them. His voice was flat, toneless. 'We were starting to get bored.'

  'Fashionably late,' said Trev. 'It was time well spent, though. We've sussed your little plan.'

  'Oh really? And what plan is that?' asked Kolley, still motionless.

  'You brought the demon here to kill the Colonel for you,' Trev replied.

  Kolley let out a low, sinister laugh. 'Idiot.' He finally turned to face them, and Trev's blood went cold as he saw that the tycoon's eyes were completely black. 'The demon wasn't brought here to claim the Colonel's soul.'

  'No?' squeaked Trev.

  'No,' echoed Kolley. In the room behind him, the light shifted again as something moved. Something large.

  Kolley's mouth turned up in a mirthless smile. 'The demon was brought here to claim your soul, Trevor Irwin.'

  Forty-Three

  'Wh-what?' stammered Trev.

  'We have to leave. Now,' snapped Granddad, reaching out to take hold of his grandson.

  'If you try to leave, she dies,' said Kolley. 'In a very untidy fashion.'

  'Wha…?' said Trev, his mouth working only slightly better than his brain.

  Granddad hesitated, clearly desperate to protect Trev but unwilling to abandon an innocent to her death. Agatha moved forward.

  'Trevor,' she said. Trev's eyes rolled in her direction. 'This doesn't change anything. You still have to face the demon to rescue your friend. For her sake, you must get control of yourself.'

  'She may be transparent, but she's right,' said Oscar. 'Snap out of it, mate.'

  Trev nodded numbly and did his best to take their advice. Agatha's assessment was quite correct, although not particularly helpful. Trev had been harbouring a slim hope that they could somehow sneak in and get Sarah without any sort of confrontation, which now seemed extremely foolish. He'd come to the house in the knowledge that it was a trap, and now he was going to have to fight his way out.

  Prepare yourself, lad, said Caladbolg. Trev felt a backwash of energy from The Twins, which seeped into his system and drove out some of the shock, confusion and fear that had been threatening to overwhelm him.

  'Thanks,' he croaked.

  You must concentrate, or you have no chance of victory, added Tyrfing.

  'Thanks,' said Trev again, somewhat sarcastically the second time. He faced Kolley, who was still standing in the open doorway staring back at him with his blank black eyes. 'Um. Why does the demon want my soul?'

  Kolley didn't reply. Instead he turned and walked through the doorway, disappearing into the shifting light.

  'Trevor,' said Granddad. 'You can't.'

  'What?' said Trev sharply. 'Well what the hell do you expect me to do? Walk away, let them kill Sarah and then have them come after me at a later date anyway?'

  Granddad looked at him with despair in his eyes and said nothing. There didn't seem to be any worthwhile reply. Even Oscar was silent, having apparently gone to his well of sardonic comments and found it dry, for once.

  'Right, bollocks to it. Here goes.' Trev puffed out a breath and followed Kolley through the doorway.

  The room beyond was much larger than Trev had expected and was roughly square. He was vaguely aware of a writing desk and several rows of bookshelves away to his left, but it was the room's centrepiece that caught and held his attention.

  It was a cage, albeit an extremely elegant and complex one. Narrow polished stone pillars, set at a slight angle from the vertical, stretched from floor to ceiling to form a circular enclosure some thirty or more feet in diameter. The pillars were inlaid with intricate spiralling designs that looked like they were made out of gold, silver and other precious metals. The floor of the cage was similarly decorated, as was the ceiling.

  The purpose of the inlays was immediately apparent to Trev. Raw energy coursed through them in glowing pulses, causing the shifting light that he'd seen from the other room, and fizzed across the gaps between the pillars. It was a startling and impressive sight; almost as startling and impressive as the enclosure's occupant.

  The demon stood well over seven feet tall. It was humanoid in form, with an intimidating musculature and glossy skin a dark purple colour that shaded into blues and blacks in various places. A pair of black-feathered wings protruded from its back, and its head sprouted a halo of sharp horns. It didn't wear any clothes, but a glance south of the border was enough to establish that it didn't need to; there was nothing to conceal.

  Trev wasn't sure if that made it more frightening, or less.

  It leered at Trev as he gaped at it, and raised a clawed hand in a mocking salute before bending forward in a sweeping bow.

  'Welcome,' the creature said. Its voice sounded like a low rumble of thunder. 'I am Kökwimpaal.'

  'Um. Hello,' stammered Trev, just barely keeping a lid on the numerous gibbering voices in his head that wanted him to go and have a little lie down.

  'Bloody hell,' said Oscar from behind him. 'It's a Funkelay Cage. Unbelievable.' The cat nodded to the demon. 'Evening.'

  'A funky what?' asked Trev.

  'A Funkelay Cage,' explained Oscar, adopting his lecturing voice, 'named for its inventor, Otto Funkelay, is a construction that allows for the containment of a non-corporeal entity. Such as a demon, in this case. It also prevents the entity's essence from being eroded away like it normally would be, meaning you can hold your captive almost indefinitely.'

  'The small one is correct,' boomed the demon.

  A thought filtered through the commotion in Trev's brain. 'Wait. So it's trapped in there?'

  'Again, correct,' Kökwimpaal rumbled.

  'Right. So we clout Kolley over the head, get Sarah and leave,' said Trev. 'Where is she?'

  Oscar shook his head. 'Great plan, with just one minor flaw.'

  Agatha floated forward. 'She's in the Funkelay Cage, with the demon.'

  'Bingo,' said Oscar.

  Trev looked again, and realised that what he had thought was a patch of shadow at the back of the Cage was actually Sarah's prone body. He couldn't tell whether she was unconscio
us, asleep or… well, unconscious or asleep.

  'What have you done to that poor girl?' demanded Granddad, drawing himself up to his full height and glaring at Kolley.

  'Nothing yet,' the tycoon answered. 'And it will stay that way if your grandson surrenders himself.'

  'Oh,' said Trev. 'Ah.'

  Oscar approached the Cage, frowning. 'We're missing something here. Where's Kolley's accomplice? And how the hell has he got a Funkelay Cage in his cellar, anyway? These things are extremely rare, partly because the components needed are frighteningly expensive, but mostly because they're so bloody difficult to build correctly. Get it wrong and either the entity you're trying to contain escapes, or all the energy feeds back and turns you into a puff of pink mist at the centre of a very large crater.'

  The demon showed its teeth. 'Tell them, my vessel,' it said to Kolley.

  'My father built it,' Kolley explained. 'He worked very hard to convince everyone that he was only a dabbler in the occult, but in reality he was a highly accomplished practitioner.'

  'It's hard to believe,' murmured Granddad.

  'Er, hello? Evidence ahoy,' said Oscar, nodding at the Funkelay Cage.

  'My father was a great man,' said Kolley, his monotone voice wavering just a little as his suppressed personality tried to force its way to the surface. 'Far too sharp for the Custodians. He was able to build this, the only Funkelay Cage in the British Isles, without them suspecting a thing. But…' he tailed off.

  'But?' prompted Trev. He shifted nervously from one foot to the other and glanced around at his companions. Granddad and Agatha were watching Kolley with grim expressions; Oscar was studying the Funkelay Cage with the same sort of professional detachment that Phil Grant displayed when valuing a house.

  'But he made a small error,' Kolley continued. 'One of the energy coils wasn't quite perfect. It worked for summoning lesser entities, but the first demon he summoned was able to break free, and it… took his soul.'

  'The so-called "fatal accident" that the press reported,' said Agatha.

  'Be fair,' said Oscar, 'that does sound quite a lot like an accident to me.'

  Kolley continued, ignoring them. 'My mother had this room bricked up. I never knew it was here until I came across it by accident during a renovation project. All my father's diaries and notes were still inside. When I read them I knew I had to complete the Funkelay Cage and realise his dream of having a demon at his command.'