Jon-Tom held his ground. Shapes were beginning to form within the pale white mist that had filled the bedchamber. They were not the shapes he’d steeled himself to see. They took the form of words, quite indecipherable, that drifted hither and yon. Black letters that formed snakelike blobs and scorpion shapes. They danced and pirouetted and closed in on the bed and its helpless elderly occupant.
Poor Couvier Coulb sank deep into his pillow as the sheer force of the mysterious words pushed Jon-Tom aside. They did not try to injure him, but they did shunt him several steps backward as though he weighed nothing at all.
Then the words coalesced and shrank to create the figures Amalm had described. They accumulated on the headboard and the blankets in little knots of twos and threes, tiny faceless men some four inches tall. Each looked exactly like the one next to him, interchangeable and expressionless as they regarded the kinkajou stonily. Each wore a miniature three-piece gray pinstriped suit complete with matching gray tie and gray shoes. Now faces appeared, eyes and mouths and nostrils, and Jon-Tom saw that their eyes were as gray as their clothing. About half of them carried matchbook size gray briefcases.
“You haven’t filed on time,” declared one of the group gravely.
“But I told you,” Coulb whined, “I don’t know what it is you want filed, or how to go about filing it.”
“That does not matter,” said a second.
“Ignorance is no excuse,” insisted a third.
“We have examined what you have returned.” The first demon opened his tiny briefcase and portentously examined the contents. “You did not sign your form 1933-AB Supplement.’’
“Please, please, I don’t know what a 1933-AB Supplement is.”
The demon ignored this plea and continued relentlessly. “There is an error on Line 4, Subsection H of your 5550 Supplement.”
The kinkajou moaned.
“Your 140 Depletion Allowance was filed incorrectly.”
Couvier Coulb pulled his sheets over his head and whimpered. At the same time Jon-Tom noticed that each of the demons had a forked tail emerging from the seat of their perfectly pressed pants. The tip of each tail was darkly strained, possibly by ink.
“There is a mistake on your Form 440 which we have not be able to resolve with the current data.” Tiny lines of type leaped from the open briefcase to stab at Couvier Coulb like so many micropoint hypodermics. He let out a yelp of pain.
“Now wait a minute!” Jon-Tom stepped forward and glared down at the tiny shapes. It seemed impossible anything so small and bland could be causing the kinkajou such agony.
A dozen tiny faces turned up at him and the power of those blank stares froze him in place. “Do not interfere,” said the one Jon-Tom had come to think of as the leader. “You cannot help. No one can help. He did not file properly and must pay the penalty.”
“Pay the penalty,” echoed the whey-faced demonic chorus.
“Come to think of it,” the leader continued, “have you filed?”
Jon-Tom stumbled backward. A huge, invisible fist had struck him in the gut. His breath came in short, painful gasps. Cautious started toward him but he waved the raccoon away.
“It’s okay, I’m all right.” He straightened, glaring down at the demon. “You still haven’t explained why you’re tormenting poor Couvier Coulb.”
“Indeed we have. He did not file. Anyone who does not file is visited by representatives of the IRS—the Inter-dimensional Reliquary of Spirits. Us.” Each word was uttered with utmost reverence by the demonic chorus.
“But he doesn’t know how to file. Hell, he shouldn’t have to file.”
“Hell says otherwise. Everyone has to file. It is required. It is the Law.”
“Not here it isn’t. You boys not only have the wrong individual, you’ve got the wrong world.”
“We do not have the wrong world. We cannot have the wrong world. We are infallible. We are always sent to the right place. He has not filed and therefore he must pay.”
“How do you expect him to comply with rules and regulations he knows nothing about?”
“Ignorance is no excuse,” the line of demons standing on the edge of the headboard intoned ritualistically. “He has been audited and found wanting. He must pay.”
“All right.” Jon-Tom reached toward his purse. “How much does he owe? I have some gold.”
“Money?” The leader’s lips formed a miniature bow of disapproval. “We do not accept money. We have come for his soul and we mean to have it and if you continue to interfere, man, we will take yours as well as interest earned. I Lescar, Agent-in-Charge, say this.”
“Jon-Tom,” whispered Weegee urgently, “the goblet’s prediction!”
He stared at the tiny, threatening demon. Certainly his expression was lugubrious enough. Wildly he wondered if the goblet was also right about IBM.
“It doesn’t matter, Weegee. I have to get my duar fixed. Coulb’s the only one who can do it, so I have to try to help him. I think I’d try anyway. I don’t like these smartass bureaucratic types.”
“No one likes us,” the demons moaned. “We like no one. It does not matter. The end is never in doubt.”
“We’ll see about that.” He began strumming the suar’s strings, trying to think of an appropriate spellsong. What might have an effect on demons like these? Armies of the dead, skeletal apparitions, ogres and monsters of every description he could and had dealt with, but this was a different kind of evil, sly and subtle. It required spellsinging of equal cunning.
He started off with another bold rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Money.”
Though he was functioning without the power of the duar, the bedroom rang wih the sound of his voice. The house picked up on what he was trying to do and added a throbbing, contemporary backbeat. But no matter what song he tried or how well he played the demons simply ignored him as they concentrated their efforts on the rapidly weakening kinkajou.
Eventually Cautious put a gentle hand on Jon-Tom’s arm. “Might as well save your breath. Ain’t having no effect on them. Ain’t nothing gonna have an effect on them, maybe.”
Jon-Tom requested a glass of water, which Amalm readily provided. His throat was sore already. He’d been singing steadily for more than half an hour, with no visible effect on his opponents. Not one demon had disappeared. They continued their insidious harangue of Couvier Coulb.
“There’s got to be a way,” he mumbled. “There’s got to be.”
“Maybe spellsinging ain’t it.” Cautious looked thoughtful. “When I was a cub my grammam used to tell me ‘bout magic, you bet. She always say you have to make the magic fit the subject. Doen look like you doing that, Jon-Tom.”
Was he going about it all wrong? But all he knew how to do was spellsing. He couldn’t use potions and powders like Clothahump. What was it the wizard was always telling him? “Always keep in mind that magic is a matter of specificity.”
Specifics. Instead of trying to adapt old songs to fit the situation, perhaps he should improvise new ones. He’d done that before. But what kind of lyrics would give such demons as these pause?
Fight fire with fire. Clothahump hadn’t said that, but somebody had.
He considered carefully. A gleam appeared in his eyes. His hand swept down once more over the suar. Take equal parts Dire Straits, Ratt, X and Eurythmics. Mix Adam Smith with Adam Ant. Add readings from The Economist and Martin Greenspan. Mix well and you have one savage synoptic song.
Heavy metal economics.
Instead of singing of love and death, of peace and learning and compassion, Jon-Tom began to blast out raw-edged stanzas full of free trade, reduced tariffs, and an international standard of taxation based on ecus instead of the dollar.
It staggered the demons. They tried to fight back with talk of protectionism and deficit financing, but they were no match for Jon-Tom musically. He struck hard with a rhythmic little ditty proposing a simplified income tax and no deductions that sent half of them scurrying for shelter, moaning and covering their ears.