Stephen Leather - Nightfall

She stalked around the pentagram, occasionally moving closer to him but never touching the chalk mark. It was as if she was testing his defences. Nightingale kept turning so that he was always facing her. She looked like a punk teenager, but she was a devil from hell and not to be trusted. ‘Deals can be broken,’ said Nightingale, quietly.

Proserpine threw back her head and laughed. The noise was like a thousand wolves howling, a blood-curdling scream that chilled him. The sound went right through him and he shivered. The dog sat up and stared at him. The animal’s eyes were as black and featureless as the girl’s. ‘Not this one,’ said Proserpine. ‘Your soul is mine. There’s nothing you can do to change that.’

‘Why do you want it?’

‘It’s what I do. I take souls.’

‘Why?’

‘The why doesn’t matter. It’s what I do.’

‘But what good is my soul to you?’

‘It’s how we keep score,’ said Proserpine.

‘It’s a game?’

‘No, Nightingale, it’s not a game. It’s a struggle between the dark and the light, between good and evil.’

‘Between God and Lucifer?’

‘Whatever,’ she said.

‘If you’re a demon, or a devil, or whatever you call yourself, why do you look as if you’ve just walked out of Camden Lock market?’

‘It’s my style – it’s what I’m comfortable with.’

‘But you don’t really look like that, is that what you’re saying?’

‘I do and I don’t,’ said Proserpine. ‘I’m here and I’m not here. You’re never going to understand it, Nightingale. Energy, matter, light, it’s all connected. You’re human, you only see a small part of it. I see everything. If I try to explain it to you, it would be like you explaining nuclear physics to an earthworm.’

‘And why my soul?’

‘Because it was offered to me by your father.’

‘But that’s not fair. It’s my soul, what right did he have to trade it?’

Proserpine laughed, her voice louder and deeper than any sound Nightingale had ever heard. ‘Fair?’ she said. ‘You want fairness? Nothing in life is fair. Haven’t you learned that yet?’

‘So anyone can sell a soul, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Your soul was promised to me by your father before you were born. Before it was yours.’

‘And there’s nothing I can do to stop you taking it?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘Mitchell seems to think you can be beaten.’

‘Mitchell is wrong.’

‘He says that so long as he stays within his pentagram, he walks into hell on his own terms.’

Proserpine smiled. ‘Yeah, well, the fat lady hasn’t sung on that one yet.’ She nodded at the packet of Marlboro. ‘Maybe I will have a cigarette.’

Nightingale threw the packet to her and she caught it one-handed. She tapped out a cigarette, tossed it high in the air and caught it between her lips. ‘Got a light, mister?’ she asked, in a sing-song little-girl voice. She winked and held out her right hand. It burst into flames and she lit the cigarette. She blew smoke at the ceiling, shook her hand and the flames vanished.

‘I saw a conjuror do that once,’ said Nightingale.

‘I shall miss your sense of humour,’ she said.

‘When I’m in hell?’

‘When your soul is in hell,’ she said. ‘You’ll be dead.’

‘I’ve a question for you,’ said Nightingale.

‘This isn’t phone-a-friend, Nightingale. You can’t summon devils simply to question them.’

‘Actually, I’m pretty sure I can,’ said Nightingale. ‘The spell means that you have to appear and that you have to stay between the circle and the triangle. And you have to stay until I release you.’

‘So that’s your plan, is it? You think you can keep me trapped here? Well, that may be right, Nightingale, but you’re trapped too. And I reckon I can go a lot longer than you without food or water. And it won’t make any difference anyway, because at midnight your soul is mine, pentagram or no pentagram.’

‘I didn’t do this to trap you,’ he said, ‘and what I have in mind won’t take long. I just want to ask you a question. Why is Sebastian Mitchell so scared of you?’

‘He said that? He said he was scared of me?’

‘He’s sitting in a magic circle waiting to die because he knows that if he sets foot outside it you’ll drag him down to hell, so I sort of inferred it. What did he do?’

‘He cheated me,’ said Proserpine.

‘How?’

‘It doesn’t matter how.’

‘Just humour me,’ said Nightingale. He looked at his watch. ‘In a few hours you’re supposed to be condemning me to eternal damnation. The least you can do is satisfy my curiosity.’

‘I don’t owe you anything, Nightingale.’

‘I know that,’ he said. ‘What did he do that’s got you so riled?’

Proserpine glared at him, then smiled. ‘Are you planning to write a book? I have to point out that you probably don’t have enough time.’

‘I just want to understand the situation I’m in,’ he said.

‘Mitchell promised me four souls,’ she said. ‘Young girls. Virgins. They were novices at a coven of his. He promised me their souls but then he went behind my back and gave them to someone else.’

‘Another demon?’

Proserpine nodded. ‘He was leading them along the path, getting them ready to offer themselves to me, but then he negotiated a better deal.’ She smiled thinly and took a drag on the cigarette. ‘What he thought was a better deal.’

‘But why does that matter? Are you in competition with the other demons, is that it?’

‘You wouldn’t understand, Nightingale. He made me look… incompetent. He made me look a fool, as if I wasn’t in control.’

‘So you want revenge?’

‘They were my souls,’ she said, ‘promised to me, but he reneged. I can’t let him get away with that.’ She took another long drag on her cigarette, then flicked it away. It bounced off the wall and hit the floor, still glowing. ‘Just get on with it, Nightingale.’

‘With what?’

‘Begging for your soul. I assume that’s why you summoned me. To plead for me to leave you alone, to allow you to continue your miserable existence.’

Nightingale smiled. ‘Actually, you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘I didn’t call you here to beg.’

‘Why then?’ she said. ‘Why did you summon me when you have so little time left?’

‘To do what I do best,’ said Nightingale. ‘To negotiate.’

Nightingale climbed out of his MGB and looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. One hour to go before midnight. He pressed the speakerphone button. It buzzed and he waved up at the CCTV camera covering the gates. ‘Mr Nightingale, if you do not leave the property immediately we will have no choice other than to call the police.’

Nightingale bent down to the speaker. ‘Nice to talk to you too, Sylvia,’ he said. ‘Tell Mr Mitchell it’s important. Tell him I know how to deal with Proserpine. Tell him I have the answer to his problems.’

‘You’re wasting your time, Mr Nightingale. He doesn’t want to see you.’

‘Just give him the message, Sylvia.’ The moon was full and dark clouds moved slowly across its face. ‘Nice night for it,’ he muttered to himself. The gates buzzed and began to open. Nightingale climbed back into the MGB.

When he arrived at the house Sylvia was waiting for him with four of Mitchell’s heavies. Nightingale got out and went to the boot. He opened it and took out the metal suitcase Wainwright had given him.

‘We’ll need to check that,’ said Sylvia.

‘It’s locked,’ said Nightingale. He handed it to her. ‘You can keep hold of it until I need it.’ He smiled at her look of apprehension. ‘If it was a bomb, sweetie, I’d hardly have been driving it around in an old banger like my MGB, would I?’