‘What do you want?’ asked Beelzebub, his voice blackening 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, trumpeted.
‘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.