Stephen Leather - Nightfall

‘Suicide.’

‘How?’

‘Shotgun to the head.’

‘When?’

‘Last week.’

Mitchell began to laugh, but the laugh quickly degenerated into a cough. When he had it under control he took a tissue from a box and dabbed his lips. It came away spotted with red. He screwed it up and dropped it into a steel wastebin. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘I’ll be thirty-three next Friday.’

Mitchell nodded slowly, a cruel smile spreading across his face. ‘Today’s the Lord’s Day, so five days to go,’ he said. ‘He was trying to get out of the deal, you know that?’

‘He left me a video, telling me everything.’

Mitchell laughed sharply. ‘I hardly think he would have told you everything,’ he said. ‘But he was wasting his time. There was nothing he could do. And that’s why you have come to see me, of course. But you’re wasting your time, as your father wasted his.’

‘He asked for your help?’

‘I don’t think your father asked for anything in his life. He demanded. He threatened. He bargained. But even if he had gone down on his knees and begged, even if I had wanted to help him, there is nothing that can be done. A deal is a deal.’ He leaned over and adjusted the oxygen flow, took several deep breaths from the mask and settled back in his chair. ‘You read my book?’

‘Some of it.’

‘You read Latin?’

‘A friend helped me.’

‘So you know what lies ahead for you?’

‘I said I read it. I didn’t say I believed it.’

Mitchell coughed and removed his mask again to dab at his lips. The blood-spotted tissue followed the first into the wastebin. ‘It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. A deal is a deal.’

‘Why my thirty-third birthday? Why didn’t the devil he did the deal with take my soul straight away, at birth?’

‘A soul that hasn’t lived is no prize,’ said Mitchell. ‘There are seven cycles each of eleven years. The start of the fourth cycle is the most precious, when the body is at its peak.’

‘And the deal would have been my soul for riches and power?’

‘I don’t know what your father asked for. But, whatever it was, he regretted it. Eventually.’

‘And that was when he came to see you?’

‘He kept coming. He was at my door every week. He knew I’d done a deal with Proserpine. He thought I could help him get out of the deal he’d done.’

‘Proserpine?’

Mitchell grinned. ‘You don’t know anything, do you?’

‘I’m on a pretty steep learning curve, yeah.’

‘Proserpine is the devil that your father did the deal with. A bitch of the first order.’

‘And you wouldn’t help?’

‘Wouldn’t help, couldn’t help, it amounts to the same thing. A deal is a deal and that’s the end of it.’ He chuckled. ‘The end of you.’

‘Why did you give him your diary if you didn’t want to help him?’

Mitchell chuckled drily. ‘Is that what you think? That I gave it to him? Your father stole it from me. He sent his people in at night. They killed two of my men and took it.’

‘Why? What was so important about your diary?’

‘He thought it would show him a way to get out of the contract. But he was wrong. The book contains many things, but getting out of a contract with Proserpine is not an option.’

‘What about if I gave you the diary back?’

Mitchell stared at Nightingale. ‘That would be the honourable thing to do,’ he said.

‘If I did,’ said Nightingale, ‘what could you do for me?’

‘What do you want?’

‘What I want, Mr Mitchell, is to forget about all this and get on with my life.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not an option,’ said Mitchell. He began to cough again and bent forward to adjust the oxygen flow. He took several deep breaths to steady himself. ‘Doing a deal with a devil, any devil, is easy enough. The information is out there. They want to be contacted, they want to deal. That’s what they live for – to harvest souls. Even someone who is just dabbling in the occult will soon find out how to summon a devil. It used to be books that people turned to but now it’s the Internet. Google will give you tens of thousands of sites that will tell you what to do. But once the deal is done, there is no going back. I told Gosling so, but he kept asking, kept pushing. He thought the answer lay in my diary, but it doesn’t. The diary tells you how to summon Proserpine and her ilk, but not how to rescind a deal.’

‘And what did you get? What did you bargain for?’

Mitchell sneered. ‘That’s between me and her,’ he said.

‘But you didn’t try to back out?’

‘I knew what I was getting into,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t like your father. He was too eager. He didn’t think through what he was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing and I did a deal I was happy with.’

‘You sold your soul?’

‘It’s complicated,’ said Mitchell. ‘My soul is promised to a higher deity than Proserpine, though she would like to get her hands on it, I’m sure.’

Nightingale gestured at the circle on the floor. ‘And what’s the idea of the circle?’

‘It’s protection, of course.’

‘I would have thought the CCTV and the men in black suits would have been protection enough.’

‘Then you know nothing of the occult,’ said Mitchell. ‘The circle is the only thing that keeps her from me.’

‘So you’re just as scared as my father was,’ said Nightingale.

‘Your father wasn’t scared of her – she had no interest in him. She already had what she wanted from him – the soul of his first-born son, promised to her at the moment of birth. The sweetest of souls. And the soul of his only daughter. Once she had them, he had nothing else to offer her.’

‘But she wants you, is that it?’

‘She wants my soul, yes.’

‘So what’s your plan? To hide in that circle for ever?’

Mitchell chuckled. ‘I’m not hiding, Nightingale. You can’t hide from a devil. She knows exactly where I am, I’m sure of that. And “for ever” isn’t an option.’ He coughed again, then moved his mask and spat bloody phlegm into a tissue. ‘Cancer. I’ve a few months at most. Then I walk into hell of my own accord.’

‘But either way you’re dead,’ said Nightingale.

‘It’s one thing to be dragged kicking and screaming into the eternal fire,’ said Mitchell. ‘If I walk in under my own steam, I take my place among the princes of hell.’

Nightingale folded his arms. ‘So, what are my options?’ he asked.

‘You have none,’ said Mitchell. ‘Enjoy what little time you have left, and say your goodbyes.’

‘There are always alternatives,’ said Nightingale. ‘Options. Choices.’

‘Not in this case,’ said Mitchell. ‘Your soul is hers. Your father would have done the negotiation even before you were born. And at the moment of birth he would have carried out the ceremony. From that moment on, she owned your soul.’

‘What if I were to do what you’re doing? Make myself a protective circle and stay inside?’

‘She owns your soul,’ said Mitchell. ‘She wouldn’t have to enter the circle to take it.’

‘And if I did what my father did? What if I stayed within a circle and killed myself?’

‘You’re thinking of suicide, are you?’ Mitchell cleared his throat, slid his oxygen mask to the side and spat into a tissue. ‘That would be ironic, wouldn’t it? Father and son dying the same way. But you’d be wasting your time. Your soul is no longer yours. It has never been yours. It belonged to her before you were even born and there’s nothing you can do to stop her taking it.’

Nightingale rubbed his chin. ‘In your book, you say there should be a mark. A mark that shows that the soul has been sold.’