‘And it isn’t?’
She laughed and the dog looked up at her and wagged its tail. ‘What do you want, Nightingale?’
Nightingale folded his arms ‘Help,’ he said.
Proserpine laughed again and the walls shook as if the building was in the grip of an earthquake. ‘Help?’
‘My sister. Ainsley Gosling sold her soul as well as mine.’
Proserpine shrugged. ‘So?’
‘People keep telling me that she’s going to Hell.’
‘They’re probably right.’
‘Tonight I used a Ouija board in the basement. Someone or something gave me the same message.’
‘And again, so?’
‘I thought it might have been you.’
‘Well, you thought wrong. I have no interest in your sister. You’re not the centre of my universe, Nightingale. Why would you think I care what happens to you or those close to you?’
‘I sort of assumed you saw and heard everything.’
‘Well, you sort of assumed wrong. You call me and I’ll come to see what you want. But when I’m in the Elsewhere I don’t give you a second’s thought.’
‘I’m hurt.’
‘No, you’re not, but carry on wasting my time like this and you’ll feel pain like you’ve never felt before.’ She folded her arms. ‘What do you want? Why did you call me?’
‘My sister’s soul. Ainsley Gosling sold it to one of your lot. Frimost.’
‘Frimost?’ repeated Proserpine.
‘You know him?’
‘By reputation,’ she said. ‘He’s a nasty piece of work.’
Nightingale grinned. ‘That’s ironic, coming from you.’
Proserpine narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’
‘Well, you’re all devils, aren’t you? The Fallen. Sending souls to Hell and all that jazz. I guess to an outsider you’d all look like nasty pieces of work. No offence.’
Proserpine roared with laughter and the floor shook. ‘None taken,’ she said. ‘But we’re not all the same, Nightingale. And, if you meddle with Frimost, you’ll discover that to your cost.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘So what do you want?’
‘I want to know how to get my sister’s soul back,’ said Nightingale. ‘I want to know how to deal with Frimost.’ He studied Proserpine with unblinking eyes, looking for any hint as to what was going through her mind. As a police negotiator he’d learned that body language and facial expressions were more of a key to what a person was thinking than what came out of their mouths. But Proserpine wasn’t human, she was a demon from the bowels of Hell, and her face was as smooth and featureless as porcelain, her eyes like pools of oil.
‘What do you think I am, Nightingale?’ she said. ‘Phone a friend?’
‘I thought we had a connection,’ he said. ‘I helped you get what you wanted, didn’t I?’
She sneered at him. ‘We had a deal, Nightingale. That doesn’t mean we had a connection.’
Nightingale rubbed the back of his neck. The skin there was soaking wet. ‘My sister’s an innocent in all this,’ he said.
Proserpine grinned. ‘There are no innocents, Nightingale. Haven’t you heard of Original Sin?’
‘Her soul was sold on the day she was born,’ said Nightingale. ‘It wasn’t her choice and she didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t do a deal; she has no idea what’s coming.’
‘Do I care?’ The dog growled again and Proserpine patted him on the neck. ‘We won’t be here long,’ she said.
‘Actually, that’s not true, is it?’ said Nightingale.
She looked up at him, her eyes narrow slits. ‘What do you mean?’
‘According to the rules of the game, if I summon you, you have to stay here for as long as I want you to. And you have to stay in the space between the circle and the triangle. That’s right, isn’t it?’
Proserpine straightened up and cocked her head to one side. ‘So now you’re an expert on summoning devils, are you?’
‘I just know what I’ve read,’ he said. ‘And what I’ve read says that you’re a prisoner until I let you go.’
She nodded slowly, clearly amused.
‘What’s funny?’ he asked.
‘ Little Britain,’ she said. ‘That always makes me laugh. The fat bald one, what’s his name?’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘I don’t watch much TV these days.’
‘You should,’ she said. ‘Reflects life the way it’s lived. And The Office. Now that was funny. The place they work in reminds me of Hell.’
‘I thought Hell was fire and brimstone.’
‘It can be,’ she said. ‘Do you want a visit?’
‘You can take me?’
‘Just ask.’
‘And you’ll bring me back?’
She laughed and this time the floor shuddered as if the house was in the grip of an earthquake. ‘I shall miss your sense of humour, Nightingale,’ she said.
‘When?’
‘When you’re dead.’ She ran her hand through her spiky hair. ‘It’s time for you to let me go,’ she said. ‘You keep me any longer and you’ll try my patience.’
‘You have to stay until I say you can go.’
She folded her arms. ‘Really?’ she said.
‘That’s what the books say.’
‘You don’t want to believe everything you read in books,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of crap in the Bible, for instance. And don’t get me started on the Koran.’
‘I just want some advice,’ he said. ‘Some guidance. Give me that and I’ll release you.’
‘What if we just wait and see?’ she said quietly.
‘What do you mean?’
A cunning smile spread slowly across her face. ‘You really don’t understand the magic circle, do you?’ she said.
‘It got you here, didn’t it?’
‘Yes, it did,’ she said. ‘And you’re inside the circle and I’m outside, but which of us is really trapped?’
Nightingale felt something cold run down his spine and he shivered.
‘Time is different for me, Nightingale. You measure your fleeting life in seconds and minutes. I measure mine in…’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t measure it,’ she said. ‘Time just is. Time to me is like length, breadth and width. It’s just there. It doesn’t move the way it does for you.’
Nightingale frowned. ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ he said.
‘Of course you don’t,’ she said. ‘But understand this. I can stand here for a hundred years. A thousand. A million, if necessary. But you? Could you do twenty-four hours in that circle? A week? Could you do a month? Without food or water? And even without food and water how long do you think you can stay there before you lose your mind?’ She grinned. ‘How about we give it a go?’ She dropped her arms to her sides and stared at him impassively.
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Nightingale.
Proserpine said nothing but continued to stare at him. Her eyes were black and featureless, the irises blending perfectly into the pupils; but there was no reflection in them so it seemed as if they absorbed everything. Her face was a blank mask and he couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or through him. He walked around the cardboard box and then faced her again. She hadn’t moved, and neither had the dog. It was as if they had frozen.
‘You’re sulking, is that it?’ he asked.
There was no reaction.
‘You’re just going to stand there and do nothing?’
She stayed where she was, frozen to the spot. Nightingale walked up to her and stared at her across the chalk outline. He held up his right hand and waved it in front of her face. Her eyes continued to stare fixedly ahead and there was no sign that she was even breathing.
He moved his head closer to hers, taking care not to cross the pentagram, but still Proserpine didn’t react. He walked back to the centre of the pentagram and stood there watching her. The seconds ticked by. A minute. Two minutes. Nightingale realised that she was right. Time was crawling by and there was no way he could spend hours in the pentagram, never mind days or weeks. And so long as she was in the room, he couldn’t step outside the pentagram because then it would all be over. The pentagram wasn’t only protection, it was a prison. He looked at the dog. It was completely motionless and the eyes were dull and lifeless. Nightingale stared at the dog, waiting to see if it would blink, but a full minute passed and nothing happened.