I nodded and smiled reassuringly, as much for me as for her. My first thought was how much she looked like Paul as Polly, but there was an inner light and peace in Melissa that Paul had never found. I walked carefully forward and knelt before Melissa, careful not to touch any of the lines of the pentacle.
“Hello, Melissa. I’m John Taylor. I’ve been looking for you. It’s good to meet you at last. Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.”
“And my family?” said Melissa.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “It might be too late for some of them, but I specialise in lost causes.”
“Of course you do, Mr. Taylor,” said a calm, hateful, familiar voice. “After all, you’re the greatest lost cause of all.”
I looked around and there he was, leaning against the far wall with his arms casually folded across his chest, smiling like he had all the answers and several aces tucked up his sleeve. The man behind it all, right from the beginning. The man I’d Seen slaughter all those nuns in the chapel.
The butler, Hobbes.
I rose slowly to my feet and turned to look at him. “I knew there was something wrong about you from the start, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe the butler did it.”
“Welcome to the real heart and soul of Griffin Hall, Mr. Taylor. So glad you could attend. The floor show will begin soon.”
“The devil you say.” I started towards him, but stopped as he pushed himself away from the wall. Without actually doing anything, he was suddenly very dangerous and not at all human. I adopted a casual stance and gave him my best sneer. “I should have known it was you the moment I heard your name. Hob is an old name for the Devil. Your name isn’t Hobbes, it’s Hob’s—belonging to the Devil.”
“Exactly,” said Hobbes. “It’s amazing how many people miss the most obvious things even when you thrust them right under their stupid mortal noses.”
“Enough,” I said. “We’re well past the time for civilised conversation. Show me your real face. Show me what you really are.”
He laughed at me. “Your limited human mind couldn’t cope with all the awful things I am. Just one glimpse of my true nature would blow your little mind apart. But there is a shape I like to use, when I am summoned to this dreary mortal plane…”
He stretched and twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the geometries of the material world, and in a moment Hobbes was gone and something else was standing in his place. Something that had never been, never could be, merely human. It was huge, almost twelve feet tall, bent over to fit into the stone-walled cellar, its horned head scraping against the ceiling. It had blood-red skin covered in seeping plague sores and great membranous batwings that stretched around it like a ribbed crimson cloak. It had cloven hoofs and clawed hands. It was hermaphrodite, with grossly swollen male and female parts. It stank of sulphur and suffering. And its face…I had to look away for a moment. Its face was full of all the evil and pain and horror in the world.
The Griffin family all cried out at the first sight of the demon in its true form, and I think I did, too.
“A bit medieval, I know,” said Hobbes, in a soft, purring voice like spoiled meat and babies crying and the growl of a hungry wolf. “But I always was a traditionalist. If a thing works, stick with it, that’s what I say.”
“Fight him, Taylor!” said Jeremiah Griffin. And even crucified to a wall in his own cellar, some of the Griffin’s strength and arrogance still came through. “Stop him before he destroys us all!”
Hobbes looked at me interestedly, a long red hairless tail slithering round its hoofs. I stood very still. I was thinking hard. I didn’t dare rush into anything. In this place we were all in danger, not just of our lives, but of our souls as well. This wasn’t one of the minor demons, like those I’d bluffed successfully in the past—this was the real deal. A Duke of Hell, and Hell was very near now, getting closer by the moment. I had to find a way out of this mess and be long gone before the Devil arrived to claim what was owed him. Hobbes said it was a traditional sort, so…I pulled a silver crucifix out of my coat-pocket, pre-blessed with holy water, and thrust it at Hobbes. The crucifix exploded in my hand, and I cried out in agony as silver fragments were thrust deep into my palm and inner fingers. Hobbes laughed, and the sound of it made me shudder.
“This is Hell’s territory,” it said calmly. “A shape is only a shape unless you have the faith to back it up. Have you ever had faith in anything, Mr. Taylor?”
Don’t try and argue with it. They always lie. Except when the truth can hurt you more…
“How long?” I said, cradling my injured hand against my chest. “How long have you been masquerading as the Griffin’s butler?”
“I’ve always been the Griffin’s butler,” said Hobbes. “Right from the very beginning. But I changed my face and form down the centuries, disappearing as one man and reappearing as another, and no-one ever noticed, least of all the Griffin. No-one notices servants. I stayed very close to him as he built his precious empire on the blood and suffering and wasted lives of others, dropping the odd word of advice here, a suggestion there, to see my master’s work done. My true master…For I was always my master’s servant, and never Jeremiah’s…”
“How did you get into the Nightside?” I said. “This place was designed to be free from the direct interventions of Heaven or Hell.”
“I was invited,” said Hobbes. “And Above and Below have always had their agents in the Nightside. You know that better than most. I’m so glad you found your way here, John. It wouldn’t be the same without you here, watching helplessly as I win at last.”
“You can save that crap,” I said. “I’m here because you couldn’t keep me out, despite all your efforts. You were the one who kept interfering with my gift. I should have spotted it only ever happened when you were around. And now you’re scared shitless I’ll find some way to stop you, after all your hard work, and cheat the Devil of his prize. Your master can be very hard on those who fail him…”
“I led you here,” said Hobbes. “I laid out the dead, to bring you down…”
“You put them there to frighten me off,” I said. “But I don’t frighten that easy.”
“Even you can’t break a compact willingly entered into with Hell!”
I had to smile. “I’ve been breaking the rules all my life.”
“My master will be here very soon,” said Hobbes. “And if you are here when he rises through that pentacle to claim his own, he will drag you down into Hell along with the others.”
“Answer me this,” I said. I was playing for time, and Hobbes had to know it, but its kind love to boast. “Why should the Devil grant a man such a long life if not actual immortality?”
“Because it corrupts,” Hobbes said easily. “Knowing that you can get away with anything. Jeremiah has done such terrible things, in his many years, and never once been punished for any of it. He made himself rich and powerful in awful ways, and so, through example, led many others into temptation and corruption. This one man has brought about the downfall of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, directly and indirectly. Spreading evil down the centuries as his business grew and spread. Based on evil, infecting others with its evil. We’re all very pleased with what Jeremiah has achieved, doing Hell’s work for so long…You won’t believe the welcome we’ve got planned for him and his family, in the very hottest flames of the Inferno.”
“Not Melissa,” I said.
Hobbes snorted loudly. “Who could have foreseen that such a man, steeped in centuries of evil, would go soft over a pretty face? But as time runs out, the damned often search for a way to wriggle out of the deal they made, to undo the evil they’ve done. All they really have to do is repent, honestly and truly, and Hell couldn’t touch them. But of course, if they were the kind who could repent, they wouldn’t make a deal with the Devil in the first place. Jeremiah, at least, was less hypocritical than most. He thought by leaving his empire to a pure soul, she could at least redeem his legacy. But that couldn’t be allowed. I’ve put too much work into ensuring that Jeremiah’s evil will live on after him, corrupting others for years to come, because only a business can be truly immortal.”