few moments he shook himself and stood, smoothing the velvet of his gown. “Well, then, I suppose it must be. Did you hear, Doctor Montague? We shall proceed tomorrow night,” he said, and turned back to me, asking what he could expect, how he would rise from the grave, and if I hesitated to answer the earl dragged a rough nail across my burned and blistered skin. An eternity later he turned to go, stopping almost as if in afterthought. “There’s someone waiting to see you,” he said with spiteful good humor, and threw open the door. I recognized the scent, civet and ambergris, before I even saw him. It was Tom.
He gave a cry at the sight of me, taking in the torn and stinking clothing, my matted hair and wasted frame, the sores where the wooden shackles had galled my flesh. His eyes swept the inflamed wounds along the veins in my arms, and the blackened blisters on my chest. I turned my head, my blood-smeared lips forming themselves into a travesty of a smile.
“Well, Tommy, it seems that I should not have dismissed your competence at vengeance quite so casually. How now, do you mislike what you have made?” My voice was hoarse and almost inaudible. Tom took a step back.
“I—I never intended this—”
“Never mind, Tommy,” I interrupted him wearily. “I forgive you. Now run along.” Tom opened his mouth as if to speak again, then fled the room, leaving Northumberland snickering behind him.
The next night, after vague dreams of being manhandled, I woke in a different room. The rags of my clothing had been stripped from me, and I was bound spread-eagled on a cold wooden floor. The wooden shackles still encircled my wrists and ankles, the collar still in place around my neck, and I was pegged tightly to the floor beneath me. I could turn my head enough make out the broad lines of a pentacle chalked around me, but not enough to read its intent. My chest itched from the designs and symbols painted there with a stinking paste mixed from soot and shit. Presently the earl, robed in red, entered with his diminutive helper, robed in black. They set about their business, ignoring me as I waited helpless in the middle of the floor. Before long their preparations were completed and the invocation started, making it plain that they were about to conjure a demon into the circle with me.
I knew then that I would die this night, and desired only that whatever was conjured would make a quick end to me. The room filled with the smoke of the burning herbs, which did not rise from the braziers, but spilled out over the floor like a filthy ground fog. I had closed my eye against the acrid smoke, but opened it wide at the peak of the chant when a burst of power tore through the room, slamming the earl against a wall. It was as if a portal that should have opened only a crack had been thrust full wide to accommodate . . . what?
I realized that I was no longer alone inside the circle. A young man sat facing me, a beautiful young man, with hair of silver-gilt, and a naked form that set my heart racing. I stared at the high cheekbones, the long, slanting, lilac-colored and slit-pupiled eyes, at the mouth that cried out to be kissed. The demon raised a slender long-fingered hand to cradle my cheek, and I turned away, trying to hide my disfigured face. I well knew what Frizer’s dagger had done to my looks. An angry jagged scar puckered my eyelid and the lids were caught together with tiny stitches of silk, against the ruin behind them. I was aware of the sour smell of my soiled and defiled body, my filthy hair and unshaven beard. At least, being undead, I was spared the further humiliation of being louse-ridden. How could such beauty bear to look at my disfigurement?
“What, dost thou turn from me yet again, my Kit? Dost thou not know me?” The voice matched the form to perfection: low and musical, with a ringing purity of tone. “How then, wouldst thou also rather I take the form of an old friar? I did not think it of thee.” His last words took on a husky, insinuating tone.
“Mephistophilis,” I breathed, and turned back to look my fill at my own personal demon. He nodded, and trailed a talon-tipped finger down