“Good point,” I said, wondering quite how Spike might be so relaxed about the whole demon thing that he could be thinking about the Felix problem at the same time.
“Betty?” said Spike into his phone. “I’m still here… Cold steel? No problem. Have you done your homework?…Well, you’d better get started. One more thing: Bowden said he’d do the washing for us, so get all the curtains down… Love you, too. Bye.”
He snapped his phone shut and looked around the room for something made of steel. He picked up the nail gun, muttered, “Damn, galvanized” then rummaged in the toolbox. The best he could find was a long screwdriver, but he rejected this because it was chrome-plated.
“Can’t we just go away and deal with Raum later?”
“Doesn’t work like that,” he said, peering out the window to see if there was anything steel within reach, which there wasn’t. “We deal with this clown right now or not at all.”
He opened the door a crack and peeked out.
“Okay, he’s in the front room. Here’s the plan: You gain his attention while I go into the kitchen and find something made of steel. Then I send him back to the second sphere.”
“What if you’re mistaken?” I asked. “He might be suffering from some-I don’t know-rare genetic disorder that makes him grow hooves.”
Spike fixed me with a piercing stare. “Have you even heard of such a thing?”
“No.”
“Then let’s do it. I hope there’s a Sabatier or a tire iron or something-it’ll be a pretty messy job with an eggbeater.”
So while Spike slipped into the kitchen, I went to the door of the front room where Major Pickles was watching TV. He was seated on a floral-patterned settee with a cup of tea and a slice of fruitcake on a table nearby.
“Hello, young lady,” he said amiably. “Done already?”
“No,” I said, trying to appear unflustered, “but we’re going to use the nail gun, and it might make some noise.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right,” he said. “I was at Tobruk, you know.”
“Really? What was it like?”
“My dear girl, the noise-and you couldn’t get a decent drink anywhere.”
“So a nail gun is no problem?”
“Nostalgic, my dear-fire away.”
Spike hadn’t yet reappeared, so I carried on. “Good. Right, well-Hey, is that Bedazzled you’re watching?”
“Yes,” he replied, “the Brendan Fraser version-such a broad head, but very funny.”
“I met him once,” I said, stalling for time, “at the launch party for the Eyre Affair movie. He played the part of-”
“Thursday?”
It was Spike, calling from the kitchen. I smiled and said to Major Pickles, “Would you excuse me for just one moment?”
Pickles nodded politely, and I walked to the kitchen, which was, strangely enough, empty. Not a sign of Spike anywhere. It had two doors, and the only other entrance, the back door, had a broom leaned up against it. I was about to open the fridge to look for him when I heard a voice.
“I’m up here.”
I glanced up. Spike was pinned to the ceiling with thirty or so knives, scissors and other sharp objects, all stuck through the periphery of his clothing and making him look like the victim of an overenthusiastic circus knife thrower.
“What are you doing?” I hissed. “We’re supposed to be dealing with the Raum guy.”
“What am I doing? Oh, just admiring the view-why, what do you think I’m doing?”
I shrugged.
“Thursday,” added Spike in a quiet voice, “I think he’s on to us.”
I turned to the door and jumped in fright because Major Pickles had crept up without my realizing. But it wasn’t the little old gent I’d a seen a few moments ago; this Pickles had two large horns sticking out of his head, yellow eyes like a cat’s, and he was dressed in a loincloth. He was lean and muscular and had shiny, bright red skin-a bit like those ducks that hang in Chinese-restaurant windows. He also smelled strongly of sewage.
“Well,” said Raum in a guttural, rasping voice that sounded like a box of rusty nails, “Thursday Next. What a surprise!” He looked up. “And Mr. Stoker, I presume-believe me, you are very unpopular from where I come from!”
I made a move to thump him, but he was too quick, and a moment later I was thrown to the ceiling with a force so hard it cracked the plaster. I didn’t drop; I was held, face pointing down, not by any knives or scissors but the action of an unearthly force that felt as if I were being sat upon by a small walrus.
“Thursday,” added Spike in a quiet voice, “I think he’s onto us.”
“Two unsullied souls,” growled Raum sadly. “To His Infernal Majesty, worthless.”
“I’m warning you,” said Spike in a masterful display of misplaced optimism, “give yourself up and I’ll not be too hard on you.”
“SILENCE!” roared Raum, so loudly that two of the kitchen windows shattered. He laughed a deep, demonic cackle, then carried on. “Just so this morning hasn’t been a complete waste, I am prepared to offer a deaclass="underline" Either you both die in an exceptionally painful manner and I relinquish all rights to your souls, or one of you gives yourself to me-and I free the other!”
“How about a game of chess?” suggested Spike.
“Oh, no!” said Raum, wagging a reproachful finger. “We don’t fall for that one anymore. Now, who’s it going to be?”
“You can take me,” said Spike.
“No!” I cried, but Raum merely laughed. He laughed long and loud. He laughed again. Then some more. He laughed so long, in fact, that Spike and I looked at each other. But still Raum laughed. The plates and cups smashed on the dresser, and glasses that were upside down on the drainer broke into smithereens. More laughter. Louder, longer, harder, until suddenly and quite without warning he exploded into a million tiny fragments that filled the small kitchen like a red mist. Released from the ceiling, I fell to the floor via the kitchen table, which was luckily a bit frail and had nothing on it. I was slightly dazed but got up to see…the real Major Pickles, standing where Raum had been, still holding the steel bayonet that had dispatched the demon back to hell.
“Hah!” said the elderly little gent with an aggressive twinkle in his eye. “They don’t like the taste of cold steel up ’em!”
He had several days of stubble and was dressed in torn pajamas and covered in soil.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“He thought he could keep me prisoner in the garden shed,” replied the pensioner resolutely, “but it was only fifteen yards nornoreast under the patio to the geranium bed.”
“You dug your way out?”
“Yes, and would have been quicker, too, if I’d had a soup spoon instead of this.”
He showed me a very worn and bent teaspoon.
“Or a spade?” I ventured.
“Hah!” he snorted contemptuously. “Spades are for losers.” He looked up and noticed Spike. “I say, you there, sir-get off my ceiling this minute.”
“Nothing I’d like better.”
So we got Spike down and explained as best we could to the sprightly nonagenarian just who Raum was, something that he seemed to have very little trouble understanding.
“Good Lord, man!” he said at last. “You mean I killed a demon? There’s a notch for the cricket bat, and no mistake.”
“Sadly, no,” replied Spike. “You just relegated him to the second sphere-he’ll not reappear on earth for a decade or two and will get a serious lashing from the Dark One into the bargain.”