A Yuletide Universe Read online

  “For God’s sake—”

  “There’s nothing going on, Gina. Really.”

  Her father turned from the window and looked at her. His eyes spoke what his mouth refused to say, that this was war.

  Jack was afraid.

  The house was suddenly a prison. The game was suddenly lethal. The enemy, instead of playing foolish games, meant harm, real harm to them all.

  In the kitchen the turkey had at last conceded defeat. The carols on the radio had withered into a sermon on God’s benedictions.

  What had been sweet was sour and dangerous. He looked across the room at Amanda and Gina. Both, for their own reasons, were trembling. Polo wanted to tell them, wanted to explain what was going on. But the thing must be there, he knew, gloating.

  He was wrong. The Yattering had retired to the attic, well-satisfied with its endeavours. The bird, it felt, had been a stroke of genius. Now it could rest awhile: recuperate. Let the enemy’s nerves tatter themselves in anticipation. Then, in its own good time, it would deliver the coup de grâce.

  Idly, it wondered if any of the inspectors had seen his work with the turkey. Maybe they would be impressed enough by the Yattering’s originality to improve its job prospects. Surely it hadn’t gone through all those years of training simply to chase half-witted imbeciles like Polo. There must be something more challenging available than that. It felt victory in its invisible bones: and it was a good feeling.

  The pursuit of Polo would surely gain momentum now. His daughters would convince him (if he wasn’t now quite convinced) that there was something terrible afoot. He would crack. He would crumble. Maybe he’d go classically mad: tear out his hair, rip off his clothes; smear himself with his own excrement.

  Oh yes, victory was close. And wouldn’t his masters be loving then? Wouldn’t it be showered with praise, and power?

  One more manifestation was all that was required. One final, inspired intervention, and Polo would be so much blubbering flesh.

  Tired, but confident, the Yattering descended into the lounge.

  Amanda was lying full-length on the sofa, asleep. She was obviously dreaming about the turkey. Her eyes rolled beneath her gossamer lids, her lower lip trembled. Gina sat beside the radio, which was silenced now. She had a book open on her lap, but she wasn’t reading it.

  The gherkin importer wasn’t in the room. Wasn’t that his footstep on the stair? Yes, he was going upstairs to relieve his brandy-full bladder.

  Ideal timing.

  The Yattering crossed the room. In her sleep Amanda dreamt something dark flitting across her vision, something malign, something that tasted bitter in her mouth.

  Gina looked up from her book.

  The silver balls on the tree were rocking, gently. Not just the balls. The tinsel and the branches too.

  In fact, the tree. The whole tree was rocking as though someone had just seized hold of it.

  Gina had a very bad feeling about this. She stood up. The book slid to the floor.

  The tree began to spin.

  “Christ,” she said. “Jesus Christ.”

  Amanda slept on.

  The tree picked up momentum.

  Gina walked as steadily as she could across to the sofa and tried to shake her sister awake. Amanda, locked in her dreams, resisted for a moment.

  “Father,” said Gina. Her voice was strong, and carried through into the hall, it also woke Amanda.

  Downstairs, Polo heard a noise like a whining dog. No, like two whining dogs. As he ran down the stairs, the duet became a trio. He burst into the lounge half expecting all the hosts of Hell to be in there, dog-headed, dancing on his beauties.

  But no. It was the Christmas tree that was whining, whining like a pack of dogs, as it spun and spun.

  The lights had long since been pulled from their sockets. The air stank of singed plastic and pine-sap. The tree itself was spinning like a top, flinging decorations and presents off its tortured branches with the largesse of a mad king.

  Jack tore his eyes from the spectacle of the tree and found Gina and Amanda crouching, terrified, behind the sofa.

  “Get out of here,” he yelled.

  Even as he spoke, the television sat up impertinently on one leg and began to spin like the tree, gathering momentum quickly. The clock on the mantelpiece joined the pirouetting. The pokers beside the fire. The cushions. The ornaments. Each object added its own singular note to the orchestration of whines which were building up, second by second, to a deafening pitch. The air began to brim with the smell of burning wood, as friction heated the spinning tops to flash-point. Smoke swirled across the room.

  Gina had Amanda by the arm, and was dragging her towards the door, shielding her face against the hail of pine needles that the still-accelerating tree was throwing off.

  Now the lights were spinning.

  The books, having flung themselves off the shelves, had joined the tarantella.

  Jack could see the enemy, in his mind’s eye, racing between the objects like a juggler spinning plates on sticks, trying to keep them all moving at once. It must be exhausting work, he thought. The demon was probably close to collapse. It couldn’t be thinking straight. Over-excited. Impulsive. Vulnerable. This must be the moment, if ever there was a moment, to join battle at last. To face the thing, defy it, and trap it.

  For its part, the Yattering was enjoying this orgy of destruction. It flung every movable object into the fray, setting everything spinning.

  It watched with satisfaction as the daughter twitched and scurried; it laughed to see the old man stare, pop-eyed, at this preposterous ballet.

  Surely he was nearly mad, wasn’t he?

  The beauties had reached the door, their hair and skin full of needles. Polo didn’t see them leave. He ran across the room, dodging a rain of ornaments to do so, and picked up a brass toasting fork which the enemy had overlooked. Bric-a-brac filled the air around his head, dancing around with sickening speed. His flesh was bruised and punctured. But the exhilaration of joining battle had overtaken him, and he set about beating the books, and the clocks, and the china to smithereens. Like a man in a cloud of locusts he ran around the room, bringing down his favorite books in a welter of fluttering pages, smashing whirling Dresden, shattering the lamps. A litter of broken possessions swamped the floor, some of it still twitching as the life went out of the fragments. But for every object brought low, there were a dozen still spinning, still whining.

  He could hear Gina at the door, yelling to him to get out, to leave it alone.

  But it was so enjoyable, playing against the enemy more directly than he’d ever allowed himself before. He didn’t want to give up. He wanted the demon to show itself, to be known, to be recognized.

  He wanted confrontation with the Old One’s emissary once and for all.

  Without warning the tree gave way to the dictates of centrifugal force, and exploded. The noise was like a howl of death. Branches, twigs, needles, balls, lights, wire, ribbons, flew across the room. Jack, his back to the explosion, felt a gust of energy hit him hard, and he was flung to the ground. The back of his neck and his scalp were shot full of pine-needles. A branch, naked of greenery, shot past his head and impaled the sofa. Fragments of tree pattered to the carpet around him.

  Now other objects around the room, spun beyond the tolerance of their structures, were exploding like the tree. The television blew up, sending a lethal wave of glass across the room, much of which buried itself in the opposite wall. Fragments of the television’s innards, so hot they singed the skin, fell on Jack, as he elbowed himself towards the door like a soldier under bombardment.

  The room was so thick with a barrage of shards it was like a fog. The cushions had lent their down to the scene, snowing on the carpet. Porcelain pieces: a beautifully-glazed arm, a courtesan’s head, bounced on the floor in front of his nose.

  Gina was crouching at the door, urging him to hurry, her eyes narrowed against the hail. As Jack reached the door, and felt her arms aroun
d him, he swore he could hear laughter from the lounge. Tangible, audible laughter, rich and satisfied.

  Amanda was standing in the hall, her hair full of pine-needles, staring down at him. He pulled his legs through the doorway and Gina slammed the door shut on the demolition.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “Poltergeist? Ghost? Mother’s ghost?”

  The thought of his dead wife being responsible for such wholesale destruction struck Jack as funny.

  Amanda was half smiling. Good, he thought, she’s coming out of it. Then he met the vacant look in her eyes and the truth dawned. She’d broken, her sanity had taken refuge where this fantastique couldn’t get at it.

  “What’s in there?” Gina was asking, her grip on his arm so strong it stopped the blood.

  “I don’t know,” he lied. “Amanda?”

  Amanda’s smile didn’t decay. She just stared on at him, through him.

  “You do know.”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I think . . .”

  He picked himself off the floor, brushing the pieces of porcelain, the feathers, the glass, off his shirt and trousers.

  “I think . . . I shall go for a walk.”

  Behind him, in the lounge, the last vestiges of whining had stopped. The air in the hallway was electric with unseen presences. It was very close to him, invisible as ever, but so close. This was the most dangerous time. He mustn’t lose his nerve now. He must stand up as though nothing had happened; he must leave Amanda be, leave explanations and recriminations until it was all over and done with.

  “Walk?” Gina said, disbelievingly.

  “Yes . . . walk . . . I need some fresh air.”

  “You can’t leave us here.”

  “I’ll find somebody to help us clear up.”

  “But Mandy.”

  “She’ll get over it. Leave her be.”

  That was hard. That was almost unforgivable. But it was said now.

  He walked unsteadily towards the front door, feeling nauseous after so much spinning. At his back Gina was raging.

  “You just can’t leave! Are you out of your mind?”

  “I need the air,” he said, as casually as his thumping heart and his parched throat would permit. “So I’ll just go out for a moment.”

  No, the Yattering said. No, no, no.

  It was behind him, Polo could feel it. So angry now, so ready to twist off his head. Except that it wasn’t allowed, ever, to touch him. But he could feel its resentment like a physical presence.

  He took another step towards the front door.

  It was with him still, dogging his every step. His shadow, his fetch; unshakable. Gina shrieked at him, “You sonofabitch, look at Mandy! She’s lost her mind!”

  No, he mustn’t look at Mandy. If he looked at Mandy he might weep, he might break down as the thing wanted him to, then everything would be lost.

  “She’ll be all right,” he said, barely above a whisper.

  He reached for the front door handle. The demon bolted the door, quickly, loudly. No temper left for pretense now.

  Jack, keeping his movements as even as possible, unbolted the door, top and bottom. It bolted again.

  It was thrilling, this game; it was also terrifying. If he pushed too far surely the demon’s frustration would override its lessons?

  Gently, smoothly, he unbolted the door again. Just as gently, just as smoothly, the Yattering bolted it.

  Jack wondered how long he could keep this up for. Somehow he had to get outside: he had to coax it over the threshold. One step was all that the law required, according to his researches. One simple step.

  Unbolted. Bolted. Unbolted. Bolted.

  Gina was standing two or three yards behind her father. She didn’t understand what she was seeing, but it was obvious her father was doing battle with someone, or something.

  “Daddy—” she began.

  “Shut up,” he said benignly, grinning as he unbolted the door for the seventh time. There was a shiver of lunacy in the grin, it was too wide and too easy.

  Inexplicably, she returned the smile. It was grim, but genuine. Whatever was at issue here, she loved him.

  Polo made a break for the back door. The demon was three paces ahead of him, scooting through the house like a sprinter, and bolting the door before Jack could even reach the handle. The key was turned in the lock by invisible hands, then crushed to dust in the air.

  Jack feigned a move towards the window beside the back door but the blinds were pulled down and the shutters slammed. The Yattering, too concerned with the window to watch Jack closely, missed his doubling back through the house.

  When it saw the trick that was being played it let out a little screech, and gave chase, almost sliding into Jack on the smoothly polished floor. It avoided the collision only by the most balletic of maneuvers. That would be fatal indeed: to touch the man in the heat of the moment.

  Polo was again at the front door and Gina, wise to her father’s strategy, had unbolted it while the Yattering and Jack fought at the back door. Jack had prayed she’d take the opportunity to open it. She had. It stood slightly ajar: the icy air of the crisp afternoon curled its way into the hallway.

  Jack covered the last yards to the door in a flash, feeling without hearing the howl of complaint the Yattering loosed as it saw its victim escaping into the outside world.

  It was not an ambitious creature. All it wanted at that moment, beyond any other dream, was to take this human’s skull between its palms and make a nonsense of it. Crush it to smithereens, and pour the hot thought out on to the snow. To be done with Jack J. Polo, forever and forever.

  Was that so much to ask?

  Polo had stepped into the squeaky-fresh snow, his slippers and trouser-bottoms buried in chill. By the time the fury reached the step Jack was already three or four yards away, marching up the path towards the gate. Escaping. Escaping.

  The Yattering howled again, forgetting its years of training. Every lesson it had learned, every rule of battle engraved on its skull was submerged by the simple desire to have Polo’s life.

  It stepped over the threshold and gave chase. It was an unpardonable transgression. Somewhere in Hell, the powers (long may they hold court; long may they shit light on the heads of the damned) felt the sin, and knew the war for Jack Polo’s soul was lost.

  Jack felt it too. He heard the sound of boiling water, as the demon’s footsteps melted to steam the snow on the path. It was coming after him! The thing had broken the first rule of its existence. It was forfeit. He felt the victory in his spine, and his stomach.

  The demon overtook him at the gate. Its breath could clearly be seen in the air, though the body it emanated from had not yet become visible.

  Jack tried to open the gate, but the Yattering slammed it shut.

  “Che sera, sera,” said Jack.

  The Yattering could bear it no longer. He took Jack’s head in his hands, intending to crush the fragile bone to dust.

  The touch was its second sin, and it agonized the Yattering beyond endurance. It bayed like a banshee and reeled away from the contact, sliding in the snow and falling on its back.

  It knew its mistake. The lessons it had beaten into it came hurtling back. It knew the punishment too, for leaving the house, for touching the man. It was bound to a new lord, enslaved to this idiot-creature standing over it.

  Polo had won.

  He was laughing, watching the way the outline of the demon formed in the snow on the path. Like a photograph developing on a sheet of paper, the image of the fury came clear. The law was taking its toll. The Yattering could never hide from its master again. There it was, plain to Polo’s eyes, in all its charmless glory. Maroon flesh and bright lidless eye, arms flailing, tail thrashing the snow to slush.

  “You bastard,” it said. Its accent had an Australian lilt.

  “You will not speak unless spoken to,” said Polo, with quiet, but absolute, authority. “Understood?”
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br />   The lidless eye clouded with humility.

  “Yes,” the Yattering said.

  “Yes, Mister Polo.”

  “Yes, Mister Polo.”

  Its tail slipped between its legs like that of a whipped dog.

  “You may stand.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Polo.”

  It stood. Not a pleasant sight, but one Jack rejoiced in nevertheless.

  “They’ll have you yet,” said the Yattering.

  “Who will?”

  “You know,” it said, hesitantly.

  “Name them.”

  “Beelzebub,” it answered, proud to name its old master. “The powers. Hell itself.”

  “I don’t think so,” Polo mused. “Not with you bound to me as proof of my skills. Aren’t I the better of them?”

  The eye looked sullen.

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” it conceded bitterly. “Yes. You are the better of them.”

  It had begun to shiver.

  “Are you cold?” asked Polo.

  It nodded, affecting the look of a lost child.

  “Then you need some exercise,” he said. “You’d better go back into the house and start tidying up.”

  The fury looked bewildered, even disappointed, by this instruction.

  “Nothing more?” it asked incredulously. “No miracles? No Helen of Troy? No flying?”

  The thought of flying on a snow-spattered afternoon like this left Polo cold. He was essentially a man of simple tastes: all he asked for in life was the love of his children, a pleasant home, and a good trading price for gherkins.

  “No flying,” he said.

  As the Yattering slouched down the path towards the door it seemed to alight upon a new piece of mischief. It turned back to Polo, obsequious, but unmistakably smug.

  “Could I just say something?” it said.

  “Speak.”

  “It’s only fair that I inform you that it’s considered ungodly to have any contact with the likes of me. Heretical even.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Oh yes,” said the Yattering, warming to its prophecy. “People have been burned for less.”

  “Not in this day and age,” Polo replied.

  “But the Seraphim will see,” it said. “And that means you’ll never go to that place.”