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We all have our personal demons. For some, the infernal things are wholly internal creatures, or perhaps frequent visitors on unevenly weighted shoulders. My own, a particularly virulent sort, takes the form of a rather opinionated maiden aunt up in Yorkshire. For others, the sins of the flesh are sometimes made flesh. It is a rare occurrence, and altogether unholy, but nonetheless it happens—not to people such as yourself and I, of course, and I scarcely gave the notion credit until I saw it for myself (some days I doubt it still), but—it happens, to some people.
Some people, such as Ezra Temerand.
Temerand was of the landed gentry, and, more particularly, of the sort who are, as people have been saying for the last century or so, “a dying breed,” by which is meant, “steadily squandering the family money on gambling and girls.” Which itself is quite a time-honored tradition, of course, but increasingly frowned upon in these days when even the noblesse are obliged to pay taxes.
I’d had the occasion to visit Temerand’s place only twice. Once for an out-door party sort of affair, nothing too formal, and certainly nothing very intimate; once, later, after he’d got the demon under glass, as it were.
It was quite the thing at the time to collect things, to preserve things—natural history, you know; skull of rat and eye of newt, the odd stuffed marsupial—all morbid but quite harmless. At the time I myself had a few bell jars in the study with some prize specimens captured beneath (the Ruditapes philippinarum, Miss Eleanor Carmichael had whispered approvingly, before we moved on to other things, was quite charming indeed, and ever so inspiring). They were all at once something to have just for the having, a convenient ruse (particularly for the non-artists among us, for whom “etchings” was never the most believable pretense), and a handy conversation topic when a dinner party was falling flat.
Before Temerand, they were never the focal point of a visit—but Temerand was hardly the type to do things by halves, although the ladies at the tavern giggled in strange fashion about a tongue split in half like a devil and with all the talent thereof—well, there were always rumors, and I had talked to the man and never seen it. His collecting focus, if he could be said to have one, was the Occult—texts, talismans, benign trinkets with malignant provenance. About the time these rumors, and others even stranger, were starting to pick up, I got an invitation to his place. A proper invitation, vellum and calligraphy, and quite elegantly phrased; the sort of thing one can’t turn down without resorting to equally elegant trappings, of which I was a little short on at the time. So I thought I might as well give it a go, partake of the foodstuffs, and see if there were any ladies of interest in attendance.
There were, as it turned out, no ladies at all, and the foodstuffs—well, I can’t say I remember them at all.
There was, given pride of place in the drawing room, a veritable cabinet of curiosities, esoteric and abstruse—yet nothing which seemed to merit its own coming-out party. Clocks, carapaces, a Chilean centolla, and what have you.
Then our host pulled himself from a conversation with a small group of men (all, I believe, from out-of-town) huddled in the corner, and began to speak—clearly a prepared speech, and just as clearly one practiced in front of the mirror (for he spoke with that strange focus in which one is strangely self-conscious of the movement of one’s lips, and thereby makes one's listeners equally conscious thereof).
“I have,” he said, fairly quivering with excitement, his eyes shining with that too-brightness of the zealot, and the addict, “I have something I would like you all to see. It is, I think you will agree, quite marvelous. Quite unique. Quite—well. Best I let it speak for itself, perhaps?”
And then he swept the covering off a curved tower in the corner that turned out to be a life-sized bell jar, surely custom-made, but not the most notable for its unusual size. No, what made it quite everything he’d built it up to be was the thing—the creature—trapped inside.
The figure, a full-sized man, incongruously bedecked with brutish, curving horns, had a certain Bouguereau quality that was quite startling at first, but the longer you looked, the more familiar it seemed, until, at last, I realized it was because that same delicacy—perhaps that very same expression—was to be found in the visage of our host.
“How, ah…excellent…a specimen,“ Tom Joiner offered tentatively.
“Exquisite, indeed,” old Colonel Marbury gritted out, looking nearly as perturbed as he had the time his granddaughter (an excellent young creature) tottered about town on a bicycle, kitted out in a pile of woolens, knickers, and skirts that somehow still managed to flash just enough ankle to make the whole look work rather well for her.
I myself knew not quite what to say, but some response was clearly expected, and it was certainly…deserving of comment. “A delight,” I murmured weakly, and passed the mantle to someone else lest I allowed my comments to become too blunt.
“Quite a trick, that, Temerand!” Rolly Mortimer chuckled. “This’ll be one of your London friends done up in paint, then?”
Trust Mortimer, of course, to take even the most macabre display as a joke.
Temerand’s eyebrow twitched, his frame tense with unexpended violence.
“Not at all,” he stated clearly, “No, this is not a man at all, but a demon. I found him, you see. Just there, beyond, at the cupboard under the stairs. Pawing through my volumes like they were his own; trailing his claws through words both sacred and profane, like he was reading them by feel alone. Turning the leaves, tempting mine eyes from the path of righteousness—“
“Err,” proferred Joiner, “D’you mean the bookcase, over by the terrace?”
“No,” huffed Temerand, seeming more agitated than a simple clarifying question would merit. “The cupboard.”
The cupboard in question, a wood and glass heirloom-type monstrosity, now overflowed with crockery, with nary a text in sight (but in such disarray as to suggest a potentially abditive motive).
We returned our focus to Temerand, but with renewed skepticism. His rhythm broken, he faltered, but only briefly, before returning to his tale.
“I caught him off-guard—he was so deep into his task he did not sense my presence till I had my hand upon his shoulder and my revolver at his back.”
Marbury raised one hoary eyebrow at me, and I could not help but subtly incline my head in response. The notion of Temerand approaching an intruder—of having the foresight to grab his revolver before approaching said intruder, no less—boggled the mind. Perhaps even more so than the notion of a demon wandering amidst England.
“So I, with my wits about me, turned upon him a heady stare and said, ‘In the name of the Lord, I command thee to stop!’ And then he froze into place—just as you see him here. And thus he has remained.”
“And you knew he was a demon because…” I attempted a subtle sniff at my brandy as I asked. Temerand, in his zealotry, did not seem above dosing his guests with holy water, or whatever passed for such.
“Well, the horns!” Temerand replied, a little flustered.
“And he just…froze? You didn’t need to say any lines in Latin, any hocus-pocus type things?” Mortimer chuckled. But we were all wondering, in truth.
Temerand flushed. “It…it all happened so fast. But I—I vanquished the demon! He was so…arrogant, standing there like it was his place, with his clever hands across spines like he owned, and—“
I was, I must confess, feeling a mite bit uncomfortable at this point in the narrative. I could not help but notice how visibly…erect the demon’s posture was. Surely not the most comfortable state in which to be trapped for all eternity, I’d imagine.
“And I said, words, you know—there may have been a little…scuffle. But I came out the victor! As you see.” Temerand finished with a flourish of his hand that encompassed—well, just the part of the statue that we’d all been side-eying.
“And you kept him?” Rolly asked hesitantly. “Surely that’s…unsafe?”
“Aha!” Temerand rubbed his hands gleefully, a performer whose audience has given him the question he desired. “The case is glass. Melted sand, you know—quite handy for keeping a demon trapped. Very safe, I assure you. Also quite decorative, I think.” His smile as he peered at the frozen creature was a thing to be feared in itself—contemplative, leering, and more than a bit crazed.
“Fancies himself the carnival barker, eh?” said one of the other fellows as we left, but his unease was clear in his voice, and hung in the air between us.
“Heh,” Mortimer added, “Seemed to. And that story! Fit for a child’s tale. Or—heh! For women’s gossip, if not for children’s ears.”
Someone snorted.
And so all of us, to some degree of verbalization, affirmed our scorn and disbelief.
The deuce of it all was that Temerand had clearly believed it, bag and baggage. That much was clear, and pitiable, yet it sent a strange chill down my spine.
Conversation then turned to more pleasant things—Mortimer’s new crop of hounds, the troubles in India, the latest from Parliament. It is strange to say that these were more pleasant—for, the occasional ribald jests aside, the topics were in fact quite serious—but they were for us all a return to familiar ground, and brought with them that pleasant feeling that one knows of what one speaks; that things are as they seem.
I ventured by the estate once, a few weeks later, and found it strangely quiet, as though all the life had gone out of the place. Catching a servant making her way to town on errand, I asked after her master. To my surprise, the question seemed an unwelcome one; her face paled considerably, and her eyes refused to meet my own.
“Ah, he’s been feeling a bit puckish, err, peaky, of late, sir,” she said nervously. “The doctor’ll be by soon, I suspect.”
Well, now, as a matter of fact I knew the local doctor, had dined with him at the club just a short while ago, and I knew perfectly well that Doc Havering had no plans to be visiting after Temerand.
But I assumed the poor girl was merely confused, as people often are; on some rare occasions I myself have been known to stutter out that I’m all out of funds when really what I meant to say was Oh, yes, deal me in. Sometimes the mouth just spouts out things.
And so I went on my way, and thought little of it. Temerand and I, as I’d said before, were not at all close, so it was certainly not unusual for me not to hear of him for some length of time. Looking back, I feel a trifle guilty about that—as one does, I suppose, always looking back and trying to see if there were signs one should have noticed. In any case, if there were signs I was not looking for them, and in memory I can recall none.
They said that that was the day he disappeared.
When I next saw Temerand, it was in London, on a dreary sort of day. A strange one, too—certainly not because it was dreary, but because—well. I’m not sure that even now I can pinpoint what was odd about it, except that things that seemed to be there one moment were gone the next in the fog, and sounds that were far away moved too close too fast. Nothing went the way it ought—and my run-in with Temerand went particularly oddly.
I saw him walking down the other side of the road and hailed him—nothing too personal, mind you, just a friendly what-ho, but it seemed to startle him from deep thoughts.
That gave me pause, because naturally I don’t want to push in where unwanted, but it had been a day overfull of ledgers and numbers, and I needed someone to drink with who wasn’t going to expect me to treat.
The conversation was rather stilted—weather, what brings you here, that sort of thing—and he seemed hesitant about knocking off to a pub till I happened to mention his curious demon.
Just a joke, it was—“I say, what sculptor did you commission for that freakish monster of yours? My sister, she’s looking for a craftsman to repair some of the gargoyles on their estate—the rainstorms have done quite a number on them; some of them have only knobs for horns, now, and that’s hardly going to terrify any—well, any of whatever they’re supposed to be up there terrifying!”
“Ah, well,” Temerand said, now looking entirely confident and even a bit sly, “That’s a bit of a secret, actually. Let’s just say, the creator’s quite selective in his projects. Quite…consuming, the whole process. A…gargoyle—it’s—well. And you—do not seem the sort of patron he usually selects. He is usually quite careful in ensuring his commitments are not overly binding.”
“Oh, yes, right, of course.” Not that repair of a couple statues seemed all that much a commitment—my sister might be a tad demanding, but nothing out of the ordinary. Mind you, I know nothing about such matters, but I do know that artists, they’re right sensitive creatures. I had a cousin who went through a bit of an artistic phase, and he was always moping about on fainting couches, whinging about how draining one’s muse could be. For the longest, I thought it was rather a funny euphemism, but then I realized he was quite serious.
“Yes,” he replied, and it was almost a hiss. “Have you ever—“ he began, before breaking off. He looked, for a moment, almost vulnerable.
“Yes?”
“Been bound to someone, against your will?”
“Well,” I said cheerily, “I’m sure you’ve heard about all the markers I have out! But fortunately the holders all seem willing to wait on a gentleman’s promise.”
“Ah, gentlemen,” he said, so that the word was almost a curse. “Ah, yes, the promise of a gentleman.” He paused, then said, even more snidely, “Some things, you know, do not exist—or, exist, but without any truth to them—the hircocervus, the gentleman. Myself, perhaps.” His eyes danced with fancy, but his mouth was cruel. “All sworn, I suppose, by a handshake?”
“Like men.” I had, by this time, absolutely no idea what he was getting at.
“Indeed. Well—if you ever do branch out more, perhaps I’ll recommend he take your commission, eh? In a dozen years or so, maybe I’ll stake on a gentleman’s promise again.” He tilted his head, then, all politeness, and smiled apologetically. “I’ll be going, then.” And then he was gone, a smudge in the fog.
I mentioned the event to Mortimer, for I needed someone to laugh over it with—but for once, Rolly was all frowns.
“John,” he said seriously, “Temerand—no one’s seen him for months. The house, it’s all shut up, the servants have gone off looking for other work."
“I—I say, how peculiar! When he’s just in London. You’d think he’d send notice.” I tried not to show it, of course, but I was actually quite disconcerted.
“Indeed, they’re putting the estate up for auction next week,” he said, “Back taxes, and such—dreadful mess. Queer how no one’s found him—I know the solicitors had people looking. I was actually thinking of checking it out myself—that strange statue, what? Just think the fit Amelia’d have if I put it in amidst her roses out back!”
I smiled wryly. “Well—if you’re fond of all your parts, I’d not try it.”
He slapped me on the back. “Right, right! Be glad you’re single, my man—take advantage! Rosebuds to gather, and all that!”
Rosebuds, indeed.
So of course I tagged along to the sale as well, because you never know what you might find, and it’s always a bit amusing to see people spending more than they ought on things they don’t need. There was not so much of that as usual, though, as the house’s contents seemed to be strangely diminished. Where had once been an elegant settee, one Temerand had bragged of recently ordering from the renowned Parisian upholsterer M. F—, Mortimer murmured delightedly in my ear, the appraisers had found only a bale of hay. And that was not the only thing that appeared strangely transformed (“An excellent joke!” Mortimer chortled).
As they pulled out the statue in its case, it seemed different, somehow. At first I put it off to the change in light—in sunlight, things often seem a bit clearer. But as Mortimer made a rather strangled noise beside me, I realized it was something more than that—where, before, the figure had been in full morning dress, the elegance a strange contrast to the fierceness in the eyes and the grotesque horns upon its head—now, it was stark naked as a Renaissance David.
“Well, that would certainly liven up the rose garden,” Mortimer huffed.
I blinked—several times—but the statue did not change any further. And then, in a strange burst, it came to me that Temerand, on the streets of London, as I’d last seen him—had been attired in that very morning coat and gown I’d last seen carved in stone.
The auctioneer began, then, voice overpowering the crowd’s murmurs, and yet I barely heard it, so caught up in my own strange fancies was I, till last he got to the demonic carving, and proclaimed, “Now, ladies and gents, you see we have here an altogether unique specimen—hand-carved and exquisitely detailed. And in this stately glass case, just suited to it, excellent for display. Now, I must confess, the pedestal is rather cracked, but that’s surely no problem for you to get fixed right up. Starting bids, now—“
It closed above 30 quid, I believe, and Mortimer was quite satisfied (Lady Amelia rather less so).
I could never quite walk by it in their garden, though, without feeling as a strange voyeur. They never did fix the pedestal, for the Lady Amelia found its crack gave it charm (“Like that bell the Americans are so fond of!”), and said its inscription seemed quite mysteriously poetic, when really it was just the sort of thing that only sounds important until translated. The inscription I could not remember from before, but of course by this time I had realized my memories of the thing were all out of sorts. But there it was, so there it must have always been:
Terminat auctor opus.