Harry and Harry

The house stood at the end of the street, set a little apart from the others.  Harry's dad had pointed it out one evening when the wind was up and making the trees sway like corn-stalks.  "They always builded them with one slightly apart at the end of the row," he said, his voice thick with the slime clogging his throat and lungs.  He coughed, spat something out of sight, and pointed in the other direction. "The first one, the one at that end was knocked down when they widened the road," he said.  "Didn't hafta, but we all knew it was the right thing to do."  He started coughing more then, and when Harry tried to bring the conversation up a few days later his dad wouldn't say anything about it.
Harry paused, the shopping bags feeling like they were dragging his arms from their sockets, and looked at the house.  In the last fifteen years it didn't look like it had changed at all; the gables were still stark black beams framing a whitewashed wall, and the eaves overhung the walls providing a narrow shelter from the New England rain if you stood in close enough.  The mullioned windows shone faintly in the looming twilight and there was a hint of beige curtain on the inside if you squinted carefully.  The curious thing was, as he stood there looking, was that he couldn't remember ever seeing anyway taking care of the house.  Surely in fifteen years a roof slate must have slipped, or a gutter cracked?
Harry sighed and turned away, walking the few remaining feet to his own front door, and kicking it rather than setting the shopping down and being faced with having to pick it back up again when the door was opened.  His muddy shoe scuffed a brown mark on the door, and he stared at it guiltily, wondering if this is why he needed to do repairs every Spring and the house at the end of the street still looked pristine.
The door opened and his sister, Harry, gave him a baleful stare.  "Don't kick the door," she said.  "It demeans me."
Harry shrugged, and then sucked air through his teeth; that had hurt.  "Sorry, sis," he said and lugged the shopping to the kitchen table.  He could hear the silence behind him while she waited until he'd put the shopping down before she closed the front door.
"Professor Rogers came over again today," she said.  He looked round, she was leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, her heavy frame blocking it effectively.  Her pudgy face looked a little pale, and she was worrying at her nails and not looking up.  "He asked me again if I'd consider being his housekeeper."
Harry started unpacking the bags at the table.  His sister, Harriet, had some kind of agoraphobia that meant she hardly ever left the house.  He secretly thought that she'd benefit from walking down to the end of the street and back again every day, and if she took a job it would make living here a little easier. It might be a small town, but daily expenses seemed to increase more rapidly than Harry's salary and he was starting to wonder how safe his job was anyway.
"What did you say?" he asked.  They'd already had two shouting matches over him suggesting that she take the job offer.
"I said no, of course!"  He voice raised and he knew that if he looked up she'd be staring at him, her deep-set eyes red and aflame with anger.  "I can't leave the house!"
"You might have to," said Harry.  "I'm not sure how much longer I'll have a job for."
"What?"  It was a reflexive question, not meant.  A second passed, and then, "What?"
"You heard me," said Harry.  He almost regretted saying it, it was provocative and unnecessary.  "The museum's not doing so well and it's getting harder to get the people in.  And summer's ending, we get fewer visitors in winter.  There's talk of cuts."
"But they can't get rid of you.  We'd starve to death."
Harry looked up at this; his sister was staring at him with a terrifying intensity.  "We'd have to sell the house and leave," he said slowly.  "Split the money, go our own ways."
"NO!"  He ducked, having learned from the last fight, and a moneybox that usually sat on the windowsill in the hall by the front-door sailed over his head and thumped against the wall.  He knew without looking that it would have broken the plaster.  "No, you lie!  You lie!  You're a filthy liar!"  She staggered backwards, looking wounded, and then grabbed the door handle and opened and slammed the front-door.  "LIAR!"
She stamped upstairs, and slammed more doors up there, screaming 'liar' to punctuate each slam.
"Kind of," whispered Harry under his breath.  He stood up and started unpacking the shopping again. The house had been left entirely to him in their parents' will so if it had to be sold his sister would get nothing unless he was feeling generous.  And lately he wasn't feeling generous at all.

Cthulhiana

The high street was quiet; there was a homeless woman, dressed in a damp dressing-gown, sitting cross-legged in front of a cardboard box outside the Post Office, and there were two dogs trotting happily along, each holding the other's lead in its mouth.  A single car had driven past them in the last five minutes, and the traffic lights appeared to have defaulted to a holding pattern of green, perhaps hoping that being obliging they might summon more traffic.  Miss Flava looked at Detective Inspector Playfair, who was looking in the window of a travel agency.
"I thought all of these had closed down," she said, nodding at the window where sun-faded posters showed white-sanded beaches and palm trees.  There were a number of hand-written index cards advertising trips to Jordan, Syria and Israel for fifteen nights and upwards.
"The internet's done for a lot of them," said Playfair.  "But don't underestimate how lazy people are.  There are still those who'd rather watch someone else use the internet for them than learn how to do it themselves."
Miss Flava hmmed to herself, thinking of several of the older officers back at the police station whose only activities seemed to be making tea and watching other people do things for them.
"Right," said Playfair, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.  "Let's get this over with then."
They looked both ways, even though the road was so empty that it deserved tumbleweed, and crossed over.  On the other side of the road, sandwiched between a Subway and Starbucks, was a small shop with a mullioned bay window and a black-painted door with a little, corroded, brass bell at one corner.  The sign painted above the window read "Tea and Tentacles".
"What does this place do again?"  Playfair's voice was gruff and he appeared to be fascinated by the scuff marks on the bootscraper outside the door.
"Cthulhiana," said Miss Flava after a moment; she had to consult her notepad to check what the word was.  "Louise said to tell you that it's like Victoriana, only with more tentacles."
"Japanese?"
"No!" Miss Flava couldn't decide if she was more shocked that her boss, who was definitely in his fifties, knew about that kind of cultural reference or that she found the idea of it somehow creepy.  It didn't fit with her self-image of independent, well-read and liberal.
"Ah, evil squid monsters that will arise when the stars are right then," said Playfair.  Miss Flava shook her head, knowing that he couldn't see her, and wondered if he'd sneaked a look at her pad back in the car.  What he'd just said was word for word what Louise had told her over the phone.  "Well, let's get inside and see these knick-knacks, gew-gaws and whatjamacallits for ourselves then."
"Goo-gor?" asked Miss Flava, feeling rather out of her depth.
"You probably pronounce it jew-jaw," said Playfair without a trace of humour but still managing to condescend like a deity.
"I don't pronounce it at all," she said primly, the effect rather ruined by the bell ringing as Playfair pushed the door open and drowning out her last words.
The interior of the shop was patchily lit, with small LED spotlights in the ceiling picking out display cases and shelves, leaving shadows to pool along the walls and occasionally in the middle of a display for no apparent reason.  There were bookcases along the back wall, some of which were located unobtrusively behind a small counter. On the counter was a cash-box and a large calculator, and behind it was a wooden stool on a cast-iron pedastel that looked as though it belonged in a Charles Dickens novel.  There were a grand total of five display cases set in the middle of the room, each containing two glass shelves and holding an oddity of items.  One case seemed to be mostly jewelry, another was knives, and a third seemed to hold maps, or possibly odd drawings.  Against another wall was a collection of scarves with eye-watering patterns blotched on to them by what looked like unskilled batik.  In the corner nearest the door was a stuffed cat with demonic red eyes and possibly a touch of mange.
"Can I help you gentlemen?"
Miss Flava stiffened with outrage as the owner of the voice, an elderly woman shuffling along with the help of a stick, came into view from out of one of the patches of shadow.
"Police," she said, holding out her warrant card.
"Bless you dear, I can't see a thing," said the woman.  "Not since the Mi-Go took my eyes away with them.  They're going to bring me back some new ones you know.  Improved ones, that can see into many more places."
"OK," said Miss Flava, her voice neutral.  She risked a glance at Playfair, quite expecting him to be inflating his lungs ready to lecture the woman on the improbability of her eyes being worked on independently of the rest of her body, but he seemed more interested in the contents of one of the display cabinets.
"Playfair?" she said, wondering if he'd been listening.
"This statuette," he said, pointing.
"Bless you dear, I can't see a thing," said the woman as though it were an automatic response.
"It's about a foot tall," said Playfair, leaning back as though the statuette were hard to see too close up.  "Has about sixteen arms, head is a bit like an exploded tulip, and appears to be standing on a pile of children's corpses."
"Oh that one," said the woman.  "£170 dear, and I won't take any less."
"Doesn't it look familiar to you?"  He was looking at Miss Flava, who's eyebrows elevated so rapidly they pulled her crow's feet taut behind them.
"I'm pretty certain I'd remember anyone with thirteen arms," she said.
"Sixteen, dear," said the old woman.
"Not the arms," said Playfair.  "The face.  Look at that and tell me that isn't Tommy Richards."
Miss Flava leaned forward, her skepticism written all over her face.  A moment later it had vanished.
"That's better than the police photo-fit managed," she said.  "If it weren't for the arms I'd swear it was him."
"Well, and the head's a bit on the squished side," said Playfair.  "But still.  Who's the sculptor?"  His voice was now directed at the old woman.
"Cassandra Styles," said the woman.  "I've got all the paperwork here somewhere, though if I'm going to get that out you're going to buy it."
"Not necessary," said Playfair with a ghost of a smile.  "It's evidence in a presumptive murder investigation.  Miss Flava, take it into protective custody please."
"What?" said Miss Flava and the old woman simultaneously.
"Now, please," said Playfair.  "I want to talk to Cassandra and find out what else she's been sculpting."

Sleeping Zombie

There was an odd knock at the door; it sounded almost like something heavy had fallen against the door making a dull thud.  But then it came again, rather later than might be expected for a knock, and then again, after a still-too-long interval.  Sighing softly to herself, Bess set down the needlework she was doing – patching a pair of trousers at the crotch – and went to the door.  She opened it, wondering if the weird old apple-seller was back with her glistening, too-good-to-be-true fruit, and looked outside.
"Braaaaaaaaainssss," moaned the shambling, grey, fly-blown figure that swayed outside the door.  It held one handless arm aloft and then brought it down.  Bess stepped backwards and the stump missed her, but her eyes followed it down and found the missing hand lying on the grass.  There were still flies buzzing around it, and she could see through holes in the grey, ragged skin that maggots were churning in the rotting flesh beneath.  The smell finally struck her, a charnel-house smell worse than the one from the place where the huntmen butchered their kills, and bile rose in her throat.  She took another step backwards, her hand rising to her mouth and nose and her eyes watering so that the zombie at the door was just a blur.  Her knees trembled and gave way, so she never saw the zombie step inside and fall over her, its teeth grinding together as it tried to chew her young, vital flesh.

*

"Aw, coaldamp," said Morgó.  He was slightly ahead of the rest of the dwarves as his pants, his second-best pair, were rather too tight around his thighs and he was hoping that Bess would have finished the repairs on his best pair.  "Guys!  Zombie!"  He unstrapped his mining pick from his shoulders, giving the other dwarves time to catch up.

"What's it doing?" asked Kuka, peering at the zombie.  The doorway of the house was shadowed and it was hard to make out exactly what was going on there.  "Is it eating something?"

"Bess!" said Morgó.  "Gaspockets, what was she thinking?  Quick, let's go get it and see if she's alright."

"What if she's a zombie already?" Tudor's voice was calm, not betraying the anxiety he felt.  They'd all appreciated having someone who didn't dare leave and so would do all the housework around.

"Let's try and make sure she isn't before we worry about that!" said Morgó.  "Charge!"

The zombie was slow-moving and the mining picks were kept in excellent condition so it took the dwarves very little time indeed to drag it out of the house and then dismember it into something more closely resembling death.  As they stood back, getting their breath back and cleaning their picks off, the birds of the forest started swooping down to feast on the wriggling maggots now strewn all about their front-lawn.

"Someone's going to have to bury the bits that are left," said Tudor, and they all looked towards the house, hoping to see Bess looking back.

"She looks a bit dead," said Kuka after a minute.  "Do you think she was trying to have sex with it?"

Tudor swatted him about the head.  "Baromarcú," he said.  "Do you think everyone tries to have sex with everything?"  Kuka hung his head in shame.

"Well," said Morgó, trying to sound cheerful.  "Let's go and find out if she's too dead to bury what's left of the zombie then."

The dwarves shuffled inside, picking Bess up on the way, and sitting her down in the chair where she'd been sewing.  Morgó picked the pants up and exclaimed with pleasure: they were just about finished.

"She's still warm," said Tudor, looking at her.  "She's drooling a bit too, so if she's dead it's pretty recent."

Kuka poked her arm and Bess twitched a little.  He poked it again, and a low moan escaped her throat.

"Not dead," said Tudor thoughtfully.  "But she's got bite marks–" he swatted Kuka before he could make any lewd suggestions, "–so I think she's probably on the turn."

"Aw, coaldamp," said Morgó.  "No more housework then."

"We'll have to go back to taking turns," said Tudor, frowning.  "But what are we going to do about Bess?"

"Bury her," said Vidor, looking at the floor.  "We've got to bury the other guy now anyway."

"...we could burn the other one," said Kuka quietly.

The seven dwarves looked at each other, not quite meeting each other's eyes.  Finally Tudor said, "No, we're not burning Bess.  And burying her seems like a lot of work... we could always put her up in the old tower."

"What, the light-house?"

"Yes," said Tudor.  "Ever since the lake dried up – and that was no-one's fault! – it's been a bit useless.  There's a nice room at the top, big windows and all, and there's only one door.  Nail a couple of boards across it and she won't be able to get out."

There was some muttering, but the fact that Bess could walk there herself was the deciding factor in the argument and so she was escorted to the old light-house, walked to the top of the stairs, and then the locked in the room at the top.  At the bottom the dwarves looked at the door and decided it was probably zombie-proof as it was, so they locked that too, tucked the key under the doormat, and went home to see if the birds and rats had eaten all the zombie bits so that they wouldn't have to burn them.

And so it was that Bess lay down on the old light-house keeper's bed and fell asleep because there was nothing there to feed her undead hunger.

Email ritual

The archaeologist sucked on his e-cigarette.  Orange liquid swirled in the transparent chamber, and I could feel Clytie pulling on my arm as she stood on tiptoes, trying to get a better look at it.  When he exhaled the smoke was orange as well, and there were flashing motes in it.
"This is what we think was a shared building of some kind," he said, gesturing behind him.  Out of the mounds of pyroclastic flow were rectangular blocks piled neatly on top of one another.  In the middle of them was a rectangular gap, which was dark and uninviting.  "We've reason to believe that it was 'office' of some kind, but we haven't yet worked out what rituals were carried out here."
"What makes you so certain that there were rituals performed here?" asked a middle-aged woman in the middle of the tour group.  Her hair was white and architecturally styled, and her couture was showing pastoral scenes; I thought I recognised Lake Windermere before the inundation as I watched it change.
"It's called an 'office'," said the archaeologist with patience.  "'Offices' were ritual positions held by high-ranking C20-baseline humans, and we know that they had many rituals that they performed.  Such as 'going to work'."
"I tried 'going to work' once," whispered Clytie, and then she giggled.  I patted her arm in as friendly a manner as I could.  Clytie is lovely most of the time, but whenever she's on a sub-cycle she's as irritating as a mantis-pet.  "It was really weird; I spent eight hours sitting at a desk and periodically a man would come past and ask me if I thought I was going to get paid for it."
"Some officiants were paid," said the archaeologist, overhearing Clytie.  "But we haven't been able to work out yet what that entailed."
There was a generally muttering from the group, and then the archaeologist took another drag from his e-cigarette and led the way through the dark rectangle.  As he stepped through heat-sensitive lamps turned out and illuminated a stone-floor room, still rectangular.  There was a horseshoe shaped object in the middle of the floor with an opening to the rear that seemed only to force people entering to walk around it to a staircase at the back.
"We've clearly entered from the rear, "said the archaeologist, gesturing at the horseshoe shape.  "Officiants coming in from the correct side would presumably enter this shape where they would perform their first ritual of the day."
"What would that be?" asked a merboy.  He was stood near the front, and I'd noticed him earlier; he was hovering near an elderly couple and occasionally glancing up at them as though they were his grandparents, but they'd barely noticed him.  I suspected he was a plant for the archaeologist.
"I'm glad you asked," said the archaeologist confirming my suspicions.  "It was the email ritual."
Clytie giggled again and stroked my arm as though it were a mantis-pet.  I tried not to shiver.
"Email was a time-consuming activity that dominated baseline human attention for nearly a hundred years," said the archaeologist.  "It required constant attention and when left alone for any period of time would grow out of control and require drastic action to tame again.  People talked of mass-delenda, some kind of culling process.  There were officiants who wrote learned treatises on how to keep email at a near-zero state, which we think means that it was essentially quiescent and didn't attempt to control baseline humans.  The email ritual was a cleansing step, whereby the officiant would attempt to destroy as much email as had grown overnight so that the day could be used for something productive.  It was therefore an essential part of the 'office' that the officiant delete email as a first step in the day.  Note that the email is contained within this horseshoe structure and paths around it are allowed, so clearly it could grow large and unboundedly.  We should be very grateful that the scourge of email was eventually overcome!"
"Wow!" said the merboy, but no-one was listening now.  They were all eyeing the horseshoe shape with apprehension.
"Is there still... email... in there?" asked the middle-aged woman.  She took a step back.
"No, we've not been able to find any email at all," said the archaeologist.  "It appears to have been completely eradicated.  Now, moving on and up these stairs...."

Thirty pieces of silver

Asmodeus opened his hand; it had two thumbs on it, flanking five fingers.  The fingernails were opalescent and unusually thick, and spurs of bone poked through the knuckles at each joint.  In the palm of his hand was a literal handful of pieces of silver.  Each one looked slightly greasy; a rainbow shimmer came off them and the design on the faces of the coins was hard to focus on and read.
"And I just take one?"  Travis's voice was hesitant, catching in his throat.  His hands stayed firmly pushed into his coat pockets and the threadbare garment pulled tight around the back of his neck.
More than one if you like, said Asmodeus.  His voice seemed to come from far away and yet at the same time it was like hearing someone whisper in your ear.  Travis pulled a hand free from a pocket to rub at his left ear.  I am not ungenerous.
"There has to be a catch," said Travis.  "You're Asmodeus.  You wouldn't give power away just like that, there's got to be a catch."
Very well, there's a catch, said Asmodeus.  His eyes sparkled; they were grey and deepset with crow's-feet at the corners.  There was a hint of a smile on his face and it was like looking at a cheerful grandfather.
"I knew it!" said Travis.  He paused, and then balled his hand up into a fist and shoved it back into his pocket.  "What's the catch then?"
You'll be able to use a portion of my power, said Asmodeus.  For any purpose you choose.  However, no other King will be able to offer a portion of their power while you have a portion of mine.  They're mutually exclusive.  We have quantum mechanics working on the why of it right now, in fact.  Working hard.
"I don't think I understood much of that," said Travis.  Honesty was, in his book, the best policy, but even he would have to admit that his book was a short one with easy words and a big font.  "If I take one of your coins then no other demon will give me a coin as well?"
King is the preferred term.  The writers of the Bible found it apt to... heh, demonise us, but we were mortals too.  And Kings, for that matter.  I can introduce you to Nebuchadnezzar if you like?  Or perhaps Balthazar?
"They sound like drinks, not Kings," said Travis.  His eyes were fixated now on the coins and he had a hungry look on his face.  "Whose got the best coins then?"
Me, obviously.
"Yeah right, but you would say that wouldn't you?  How do I get more of you here so I can have a... like a... thingy, you know!"
Auction?
"Yeah, sure, that'll do."
Take my coin.  You'll have power then over a number of other Kings.  Take more than one coin and you'll have power over even more Kings.
"Hang on, this can't be right."  Travis rocked back and forth on his feet, his fists clenching and unclenching inside his coat pockets.  His left eyelid was flickering with muscle spasms.  "Each one of those coins is like one-thirtieth of your power.  What if I just take them all?"
Of course you may take them all.  Asmodeus's hand moved a little closer to Travis and the coins jingled seductively.  Though there are only twelve there.  And each coin represents only 1% of my power.
"So there's a hundred in total?"
There are thirty in total.  It is a – significant – number.  And I am not fool enough to give away all my power, child.  I might need it, after all.
"Right, right," said Travis.  His eyes were almost vacant now and a droplet of drool was forming at the corner of his lip.  "I can have one right?  Mine.  To keep."
Oh yes, said Asmodeus.  But don't forget that there's a catch.
"Yeah, sure," said Travis.  His hand came out of his pocket and he lunged at Asmodeus's hand.  He pulled a single coin from the pile and held it up.  "Mine!"
Asmodeus made the other coins disappear nearly instantly and a wide grin spread across his face.
Mine, he echoed.

Asmodeus

"They do not call it the Asmodean Museum!" said Charles hotly.  His face was flushed and his eyes were protruding a little, which was very impressive for a ghost.  Standing next to him, in a guise only marginally hideous to human perceptions, was Asmodeus.
They used to, he said, his voice seemingly formed from the noises of the cathedral around them.  A footfall became a hard consonant, the flick of a duster across the top of the pews became a sibilant.  It had the odd effect of making it seem like the entire cathedral was speaking Asmodeus's thoughts.  Then Herbert became the curator and decided that the name needed to change.  But didn't the Bard observe that the name of the thing matters not?  That the essence will out?
"That doesn't sound all that much like Taliesin to me," said Charles.  "Not enough words for starters.  And I think he'd probably have said it in Welsh."
Not that... oh never mind.  Asmodeus sighed, which required the doors of the cathedral to swing open and a gust of air to rush in.  Coats fluttered and dresses lifted and an elderly Cardinal who'd led an especially sheltered life fainted.  The choirboys retreated en masse from his prostrate form, leaving it lying on the marble-tiled floors in front of the altar, and two other Cardinals came up to sit him up and revive him. One of them dipped a hand in the font of holy water and offered it to the old man.
"Isn't that sacrilege?" asked Charles.
Hardly, said Asmodeus.  It's tap water most days, though occasionally the cleaning lady empties her bottle of spring water in there if it's looking low.  They only bless it if they remember, usually before a Christening.
"Isn't that sacrilege then?"
Heh, quite possibly. And yet it happens.
Asmodeus looked around and pointed a thumb.  On each hand he had two thumbs, one at each end, and a further five fingers.  Small spikes of bone poked through the skin at each knuckle and there was a leathery, aged quality to the skin, as though it had been tanned without ever being first removed.  He walked in the direction he was pointing, passing invisibly through the cathedral.  Charles followed, noting that Asmodeus's footsteps glowed briefly in the air as he went, wondering if it was a reaction to being on Holy Ground or if it was just an affectation.  He suspected, having spent some time with the daemon now, that it was an affectation.
They left the main body of the cathedral, passing through a robing room where the choirboys had lockers and stowed their stuff while they were officiating in the ceremonies, and then on into a secondary chapel.  The ceiling was high and vaulted and stained glass windows let light in from three of the four walls.  The floor was made of large stone slabs, as were the lower walls, and as Charles looked at them he saw that they were inscribed and realised that they were grave markers.
They buried the wealthy and the powerful here, said Asmodeus.  His voice was much quieter as there was less ambient noise to work with.  An obvious folly, you would think.
"What do you mean?" said Charles.
Asmodeus reached out, his arm stretching and growing, longer and longer until it reached across the room and touched a vertical stone slab.  Light illuminated the inscription on it, growing brighter until it hurt Charles's eyes to look at it.  He turned his head away, having only managed to read the name at the top of the inscription: Lady Sheilagh ap Cwmlleg.  The light faded somewhat, and he turned his head back.  The stone slab had become transparent and behind it, sat at a writing desk with her head held in her hands, was a woman.  She had long, flowing hair that reached to her ankles when she sat and was wearing a ruffled and rouched dress that seemed old-fashioned to Charles's eyes.
Lady Shelagh, said Asmodeus and the woman lifted her head.  Black holes where her eyes should be seemed to suck in the light and her face seemed to sink into shadow.
Lady Shelagh was buried here because she paid a full third of the costs of construction, said Asmodeus.  She didn't nag her husband overmuch, she managed with the one for her entire life, and she entertained various members of the church when they came to see the progress of the work of building the cathedral.  She was considered to be a good woman.
Lady Shelagh hissed at Asmodeus and lowered her head again.  Something rattled on the writing desk and then a bottle of ink fell to the floor and shattered, spattering something red and viscous out into the chapel.
She poisoned each of her children, continued Asmodeus as though nothing had happened.  Two because she had tired of children and didn't wish to be bothered by them; one because she felt it was a sickly child and would not have lived of its own accord anyway, and her first daughter... well, she was poisoned because her mother didn't want the competition.  Did you, Shelagh?
The woman didn't respond, and Charles suspected that the shuddering of her shoulders might be sobs racking her body.
And so, said Asmodeus, Lady Shelagh's presence here, unhallowed and unforgiven, allows me to walk here freely.
"I thought God forgave everything?" said Charles.  "I mean, all you do is repent on your deathbed, right?  And then it doesn't matter how many people you killed, or how you did it, or anything.  You're forgiven, the slate is wiped clean, and off you go to Heaven."
And what do you do there?  Sit around and swap stories about how you murdered your servants for bringing you a drink that was the wrong temperature?
"I... would have thought that would be a sin of pride?"
Asmodues chuckled.  Quite probably.  But you can only be forgiven if you truly repent, saying the words is not enough.  And Lady Shelagh still doesn't regret her actions.
Asmodeus's arm shrank back in on itself, and the stone slab because solid and substantial again.  Charles noted that the spilled ink remained though, a blood-like stain against the wall.
"You showed that to me to make a point," he said.  His words were slow and thoughtful.
Ah yes, said Asmodeus.

More bibliomancy

The butler had been moping ever since the stable-boy had left.  I’d been rather puzzled as to why I was paying for the employ of a stable-boy when I had no stables, so when he announced his desire to move on to a horse-farm I had congratulated him on his determination to pursue his career and offered him a month’s garden leave.  He accepted, looking suddenly happy, and that was the last I’d seen of him.  Judging by the butler’s ill-temper it was the last the butler had seen on him as well, but I was avoiding thinking about that and the implications.

It was beautiful outside, at least as far as I could tell by looking out of the window, and I had decided that a walk might be good for my health.  I was dressed to go; I had on my best walking coat and had located my grandfather’s swordstick and my father’s favourite huntsman’s hat and was pulling on a pair of boots that I didn’t recognise but appeared to be my size when I realised that I couldn’t possibly leave the house without some idea of what might befall me when I did.

I finished tying the bootlaces and then pulled a book down from the bookshelves.  I opened it without looking, jabbed a finger on to the page, and then looked to see what was written there:

She’d attended his funeral a year ago – seen his casket being lowered into the ground.

I mused for a moment that seeing a casket being lowered into the ground was no guarantee that anyone was in the casket, or that any body in there was the intended one, and then I tried to remember where the front-door was.  The house was so large, and I left my suite so infrequently, that it usually took a moment or two to remember where I was going.  Then the memory returned, I allowed myself a small chuckle of triumph, and I started off.

As I closed the front-door behind me I caught sight of the butler watching me from the upper landing window.  He still looked morose, perhaps even forlorn, and I wondered if I should buy him a pet of some kind.  I recall that my father had his butlers shot when they stopped being able to manage their day-to-day duties, but I had a feeling that times might have changed since then, and I wasn’t in the mood for entertaining the police and their enquiries.

There is a long, gravelled drive that leads out of the house and down to the main road and I was half way along that when the spire of the church hove into view.  I thought for a moment, and remembering the words from the book decided that I was probably intended to go and view a funeral today, so I clambered over the two-bar wooden fence that stopped cars randomly driving into the fields, and waded through knee-high grass in the direction of the spire.  It was tough going at first, but slowly the grass became lower and lower and the walking became easier, and then it turned into something that was neatly mowed and maintained and the churchyard was just across a low stone wall.

There was a funeral going on as I approached, with a large crowd of black-clad mourners gathered around a hole and two caskets, side-by-side on a large blue tarpaulin, presided over by the vicar who I recognised as the son of the man who had buried my father.  I managed to get over the wall, though it was harder work than the fence, and avoided falling over when I landed on some fresh flowers on a grave on the other side.  Some people in the mob… I mean, mourners, turned when they heard me swearing as I tried to keep my feet, but I ignored them.  There was a flash of pain on the vicar’s face and I wondered if he had his father’s problems of gout, vanity and avarice.

A woman broke away from the crowd and confronted me.

“This is a private funeral,” she said.  Her eyes were red and her lipstick appeared to have been put on in a moving vehicle in the dark.  She was old enough to be my sister, and she held her arm stiffly as though it had been broken and never set properly.

“This is private land,” I replied.

“It’s a church,” she said.  She still looked annoyed, but her tone had come down a notch as though she suspected I had something to say she wasn’t going to like.

“My church,” I said.  “I’m the landowner here.”

She looked like she was chewing a mouse as she tried to work out what she could say to that.

“My sons are both dead,” she said finally.  “We are burying them.  You may stay and watch if you wish.”

“Whose funeral were you at a year ago?” I asked, the bibliomantic words burning in my head now.  She’d been turning away, but now she turned back again.

“You know…?”

I nodded, though I had no idea what she was talking about.  Tears welled in her eyes.  “She said you never knew,” she said.  Her voice cracked and became a whisper.  “She said she was trying to protect you.”

“Who?” I prompted.  The vicar was staring over at us, clearly waiting for one or both of us to join the mob.

“Your mother,” she said, starting to sob.

Now that was interesting, since I was under the impression that father had shot mother as well when she stopped being able to produce children.