Except that for some reason this rule did not apply to Polo; he was imperturbable: a tower of propriety. Indeed, the way things were going the Yattering would be the one to break. It was tired; so very tired. Endless days of tormenting the cat, reading the funnies in yesterday’s newspaper, watching the game shows: they drained the fury. Lately, it had developed a passion for the woman who lived across the street from Polo. She was a young widow; and seemed to spend most of her life parading around the house stark naked. It was almost unbearable sometimes, in the middle of a day when the postman failed to call, watching the woman and knowing it could never cross the threshold of Polo’s house.
This was the Law. The Yattering was a minor demon, and his soul-catching was strictly confined to the peri-meters of his victim’s house. To step outside was to relinquish all powers over the victim: to put itself at the mercy of humanity.
All June, all July and most of August it sweated in its prison, and all through those bright, hot months Jack Polo maintained complete indifference to the Yattering’s attacks.
It was deeply embarrassing, and it was gradually destroying the demon’s self-confidence, seeing this bland victim survive every trial and trick attempted upon him.
The Yattering wept.
The Yattering screamed. In a fit of uncontrollable anguish, it boiled the water in the aquarium, poaching the guppies.
Polo heard nothing. Saw nothing.
At last, in late September, the Yattering broke one of the first rules of its condition, and appealed directly to its masters.
Autumn is Hell’s season; and the demons of the higher dominations were feeling benign. They condescended to speak to their creature. ‘What do you want?’ asked Beelzebub, his voice black-ening the air in the lounge.
‘This man...‘ the Yattering began nervously.
‘Yes?’
‘This Polo...‘
‘Yes?’
‘I am without issue upon him. I can’t get panic upon him, I can’t breed fear or even mild concern upon him. I am sterile, Lord of the Flies, and I wish to be put out of my misery.’
For a moment Beelzebub’s face formed in the mirror over the mantelpiece.
‘You want what?’
Beelzebub was part elephant, part wasp. The Yattering was terrified.
‘I — want to die.’
‘You cannot die.’
‘From this world. Just die from this world. Fade away.
Be replaced.’
‘You will not die.’
‘But I can’t break him!’ the Yattering shrieked, tearful.
‘You must.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we tell you to.’ Beelzebub always used the Royal ‘we’, though unqualified to do so.
‘Let me at least know why I’m in this house,’ the Yattering appealed. ‘What is he? Nothing! He’s nothing!’
Beelzebub found this rich. He laughed, buzzed, trum-peted.
‘Jack Johnson Polo is the child of a worshipper at the Church of Lost Salvation. He belongs to us.’
‘But why should you want him? He’s so dull.’
‘We want him because his soul was promised to us, and his mother did not deliver it. Or herself come to that. She cheated us. She died in the arms of a priest, and was safely escorted to —‘
The word that followed was anathema. The Lord of the Flies could barely bring himself to pronounce it.
‘— Heaven,’ said Beelzebub, with infinite loss in his voice.
‘Heaven,’ said the Yattering, not knowing quite what was meant by the word.
‘Polo is to be hounded in the name of the Old One, and punished for his mother’s crimes. No torment is too profound for a family that has cheated us.’
‘I’m tired,’ the Yattering pleaded, daring to approach the mirror.
‘Please. I beg you.’
‘Claim this man,’ said Beelzebub, ‘or you will suffer in his place.’
The figure in the mirror waved its black and yellow trunk and faded.
‘Where is your pride?’ said the master’s voice as it shrivelled into distance. ‘Pride, Yattering, pride.’
Then he was gone.
In its frustration the Yattering picked up the cat and threw it into the fire, where it was rapidly cremated. If only the law allowed such easy cruelty to be visited upon human flesh, it thought. If only. If only. Then it’d make Polo suffer such torments. But no. The Yattering knew the laws as well as the back of its hand; they had been flayed on to its exposed cortex as a fledgling demon by its teachers. And Law One stated: ‘Thou shalt not lay palm upon thy victims.’
It had never been told why this law pertained, but it did.
‘Thou shalt not ...‘
So the whole painful process continued. Day in, day out, and still the man showed no sign of yielding. Over the next few weeks the Yattering killed two more cats that Polo brought home to replace his treasured Freddy (now ash). The first of these poor victims was drowned in the toilet bowl one idle Friday afternoon. It was a pretty satisfaction to see the look of distaste register on Polo’s face as he unzipped his fly and glanced down. But any pleasure the Yattering took in Jack’s discomfiture was cancelled out by the blithely efficient way in which the man dealt with the dead cat, hoisting the bundle of soaking fur out of the pan, wrapping it in a towel and burying it in the back garden with scarcely a murmur.
The third cat that Polo brought home was wise to the invisible presence of the demon from the start. There was indeed an entertaining week in mid-November when life for the Yattering became almost interesting while it played cat and mouse with Freddy the Third. Freddy played the mouse. Cats not being especially bright animals the game was scarcely a great intellectual challenge, but it made a change from the endless days of waiting, haunting and failing. At least the creature accepted the Yattering’s presence. Eventually, however, in a filthy mood (caused by the re-marriage of the Yattering’s naked widow) the demon lost its temper with the cat. It was sharpening its nails on the nylon carpet, clawing and scratching at the pile for hours on end. The noise put the demon’s metaphysical teeth on edge. It looked at the cat once, briefly, and it flew apart as though it had swallowed a live grenade.
The effect was spectacular. The results were gross. Cat-brain, cat-fur, cat-gut everywhere.
Polo got home that evening exhausted, and stood in the doorway of the dining-room, his face sickened, surveying the carnage that had been Freddy III. ‘Damn dogs,’ he said. ‘Damn, damn dogs.’
There was anger in his voice. Yes, exulted the Yattering, anger. The man was upset: there was clear evidence of emotion on his face. Elated, the demon raced through the house, determined to capitalize on its victory. It opened and slammed every door. It smashed vases. It set the lampshades swinging.
Polo just cleaned up the cat.
The Yattering threw itself downstairs, tore up a pillow. Impersonated a thing with a limp and an appetite for human flesh in the attic, and giggling.
Polo just buried Freddy III, beside the grave of Freddy II, and the ashes of Freddy I.
Then he retired to bed, without his pillow.
The demon was utterly stumped. If the man could not raise more than a flicker of concern when his cat was exploded in the dining-room, what chance had it got of ever breaking the bastard?
There was one last opportunity left.