When the affair with the Imp and Yatzi began, I was enjoying a tropical bath, humming the song about the farmer’s daughter and the penniless warlock. The tumpety-tump-tump-TA TA TAA of the second verse had pleasantly taken up residence within my forebrain when Torgo stumbled in with the morning’s correspondence. “Anything of importance, my misshapen fellow?” I asked, trying to fit the words to the tune but not quite getting either of the tumps to work out right.
“Some notices from merchants wanting recompense, sir, which can be safely ignored until men appear at your door.” I imitated a conductor as Torgo quavered the message, hoping he could follow the tune, but the man doesn’t know a tump from a TA TAA. I have no complaint about Torgo as a servant, but he doesn’t have a musical bone in his body. For a man with a symphonic skeleton, like me, it’s torture; I can put up with the legs of different lengths, a face that a mother could love only if she were blind and aesthetically damaged besides, and the occasional attempt to extort wages or rights, but the half-man’s melodic butchery is intolerable. I’ve done my best to hammer the wobble from his voice: vocal exercises, instruction on the pianoforte and harpsichord, even a hammer to the vocal cords. None has made a difference. “But I fear the missive from Grandmaster Imperialis bears more immediate attention.”
“Hand it over forthwith, Torgo,” I said, dread in my heart.
The news was as dire as I feared. Grandmaster Imperialis, whom we called “the Imp” back at St. Werstan’s Preparatory School for the Hidden Arts, stated his intention to appear at my residence on the solstice for the twin purposes of renewing our acquaintanceship and of having a place to lay his head, his wife having tossed him out on his considerable fundament. “Torgo,” I said, “we have a problem.”
“Yes, sir.”
I handed him the letter. “My old classmate, the Imp, expects to arrive here on the Solstice, and that is not at all a tolerable situation. Even if I could bear his pasteboard personality or his reminiscences on his superior test scores or his boils, we simply cannot afford the old lump’s upkeep. He inhales wine by the cask, flenses the carcasses of birds with his teeth, and considers a beef Wellington a smallish appetizer. It is quite possible someone begat a locust in his family tree, or maybe the locust begat someone.”
“Both are unlikely, Lord Bulwark. Is there anything else?”
Torgo’s tone contained a hint of frost. For the past week, we’d clashed over one of my recent acquisitions. I maintained the stochastic stoats of Quarmall I had purchased at a hedge market in Shrops would revolutionize modern wizarding equipment. Torgo resented tending them, saying their teeth were rather too sharpish and their aura tended to disintegrate any matter they gnawed on, but I had firmly put my foot down--in this case, in Torgo’s hindquarters. If he did not tend the beasts, I told him, I would be forced to fire him, and by “fire,” I meant “incinerate.” Torgo had sulkily acquiesced, but things had not been quite right between us since. “Put your big brain to work on your problem, Torgo,” I said, my tone brooking no opposition.
Torgo’s face scrunched in concentration, his mismatched eyebrows crawling back and forth over his forehead like indecisive caterpillars. Some say I have grown too reliant on Torgo, but to them I say, “Poppycock,” and then I say it again--“poppycock”--because I quite like the sound of the word. Every wizard needs a hircocervus--an arcane valet, not the blundering apprentices or lumbering factotums most practitioners put their faith in--and Torgo is the best. “One solution readily presents itself, sir,” he said. “We could absent ourselves from the premises for a more felicitous clime before Grandmaster Imperialis visits.”
“You mean decamp? Depart for parts unknown?”
“Yes, sir. A quick teleportation, perhaps--Danton’s Incipient Arrival, if I may be so bold as to suggest a specific incantation.”
“The Imp will be put out if I disappear, and being in bad odor with a grandmaster would make me smell to high heaven in wizardly society. On the other hand, it is the Imp...” I shook my head and leaned toward Torgo as much as the bath would allow. “But where would you have us retreat to?”
“The grandmaster could not complain if you were advancing your store of magical lore. As it happens, sir, Grandmaster Saddleback is holding a conclave on the subject of sporting magics at Epsom, and I believe you have a standing invitation, if you desired to avail yourself.”
The prospect distracted me for a moment, but I rallied. “No.” I gave Torgo a Stern Look and was gratified to see the half-man cower, as from the lash. “No, as much a couple of weeks in conclave with Old Saddle Bum appeals, I couldn’t call myself Lord Bulwark, last of the Bainbridges, if I ran from the Imp.” I tossed the Imp’s letter in Torgo’s face. “I expect better of you, Torgo. Go groom the stoats, and don’t return until you’ve come up with a corker of an idea.”
“Very good, sir,” Torgo said, but I could read the insolence in his slouch. As he turned away, we heard an insistent knock on the door, somewhere between a hammer and battering ram. “Torgo,” I said, “what is today?”
“The 21st, sir.”
“That wouldn’t happen to be the Solstice, would it?”
“Yes, sir, I believe it is.”
Damnation. I had but a moment to reconsider flight. The knocking grew louder, and between jamb-rattling thumps, I could hear the Imp demanding entrance so he could investigate a carbuncle he was sure was infected. I shuddered. “Better let him in,” I said, sighing, “before we have to replace the door.”
#
Within a day, I was already contemplating how I could clandestinely dispose of the Imp's body, whether it was still animate or had changed to in-. The Imp had the appetite of a malnourished tapeworm, the thirst of a whirlpool, and the table manners an ill-trained dog. The kitchen was flecked with flesh and sauces, and I found stains in the strangest places: ceilings, behind cabinets, beneath a sofa that hadn’t been moved since the Wars of the Roses. Not only was his exhibition of his inflamed skin enough to kill the stoutest appetite, but he enjoyed my reactions to his recitations of his own academic triumphs and my shambolic exam history. I retreated to my bath for several hours a day to gain a bit of peace and q., although the q. was less than perfect; the Imp’s voice carried, and most of what I heard was the Imp ordering the Torgo to fetch more food.
Three days into the Imp’s visitation, Torgo limped into the presence during one of my baths. “Tell me you have the answer to our Imp infestation, Torgo,” I pleaded. I had moved past contemplating murder to planning it, but Torgo had never let me down, not once in the five years since I’d sacked my last assistant--and by “sack,” I mean “tossed in a viper-filled burlap sack, which I then lobbed from the highest tower.” A man can’t stand for some things, and the rascal had been burgling my wardrobe. Fortunately, at about that time, I inherited Torgo from my cousin, Lady Resurrectionist, after an unfortunate lab accident.
“I’m afraid I haven’t the answer to your predicament yet, sir. I came to announce Lord Penumbra has arrived, and he seems quite agitated.”
“An invasion of spongers.” I sighed. “Bring him in.”
Torgo tripped out the door and was replaced by the more congenial form of Yatzi, who floated in trailing his customary shadows. My old chum, Claudius Yasleigh--now Lord Penumbra, but still “Yatzi” to those of us who watched him stutter his way through St. Werstan’s--looked a bit down and o. His skin was sallow and drooping, his eyes puffy, and worst of all, his robes worn at the elbows and knees. “I’m in dire straits, Beanie,” he said
“Whatever I can do for you, Yatzi,” I said, smiling, “I will certainly consider contemplating meditating over.”
“The thing is, Beanie--and this is embarrassing--it seems I’ve lost my soul.”
“You don’t say?” As I stood to grab my towel, Yatzi draped a shadow over my midsection. Despite his multitudinous other deficits, his control of the dark stuff is rather good.
Yatzi leaned against the sink. “It’s no humbug, Beanie. I’ve lost it to a... to a devil.”
I paused in my toweling and raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure what use a devil could have with Yatzi’s soul. “I hesitate to inquire...”
Yatzi looked away in embarrassment. “Just a bar wager, you know. I didn’t know the fellow was a devil. There were two puddles on the table, water and beer, and I was positive the fly would drink from the puddle of beer. And as I was down to my last copper groat, I wagered my soul against 50 guineas. It was a sure thing, Beanie. Have you ever known a fly to resist beer?”
“Only if a lord of the flies is around to influence things,” I said, putting on my bathrobe.
“Exactly! Well, it’s not as if I need the damned thing. It’s a nuisance not having a soul, but mostly I can endure. The old St. Werstan’s spirit, you know.”
“Then why come to me?” Yatzi picked at a loose stitch on his dark robes, reluctant to continue. “Out with it, Yatzi.”
He sighed. “It’s my uncle, Lord Greycloak. He gives me a remittance, but he’s old fashioned. He values the soul--you know the type--and deplores the practice of selling it. He’s told me time and again he’d cut me off if I lost mine.”
“Ah,” I said, trying to put some feeling into the word.
“He’s bound to find out, so I need you to put Torgo on the matter.”
“Right-o!” I said and shouted for my half-man. Yatzi has no assistant like Torgo. Not that there are other assistants like Torgo, but Yatzi has taken in a succession of poxy-faced adolescents who dreamed of becoming great wizards and instilled in them the skills necessary to be mediocre pharmacists. “But I have to warn you: Torgo’s already failed me once this week.”
Yatzi fell back, shocked. “No!”
“Yes,” I said, and filled him in on the details.
“Surely the answer is obvious,” Yatzi said. “You’re Lord Bulwark; one of your banishments could rid you of the Imp.”
I shook my head. “I’m stuck this time. If I expelled the Imp from my hearth and h., he’d likely take it ill. I can’t have him spreading stories of a frosty welcome. The invitations to weekends in the country would dry up if I treated a grandmaster so shabbily.”
By the time Torgo lurched into the room, though, I had started to compile a list in my head of those whom the Imp’s scurrilous truths would not move, just in case such a banishment were the lesser of two evils. “Yatzi’s in a bit of a quandary,” I told Torgo, “and we could use a bit of your grey matter on the situation.”
“I will do my best to give satisfaction, sir. I must apologize if I appear distracted, as the stoats have developed a nasty habit of appearing in random locations, and I’ve found it difficult to devise an enclosure that will contain them.”
I grunted to show my unconcern for his problem, then waved an imperious five fingers at Yatzi, who repeated his tale of woe. Torgo nodded, once, and closed his eyes in concentration. Again, I marveled at his intellect. I have failed to duplicate the process that created Torgo--all Lady Resurrectionist’s notes were consumed by the conflagration that ended with her death and my gaining Torgo. I can get everything right except the brains; all the grey matter I use is somehow defective. The resulting blemishes end up setting themselves on fire or confusing belladonna for breath mints or some other (fatal) thing. Playing God’s more of a nuisance than it’s worth, really.
After only a few moments, Torgo smiled, his teeth resembling a fence laid out by a determined dipsomaniac. “I have the solution, sir,” Torgo said, “and if executed correctly, we may be able to solve your peccadillo as well.”
I leaned forward. “Topping, Torgo! Let’s hear all the details!”
“As you know, sirs, devils are extremely legalistic, which is why they insist upon mutually agreed and duly signed contracts. The reasons for this are frequently debated by scholars and diabolists, but the leading theory suggests a contract acts much in the same manner as a summoner’s circle: they bind the circumscribed subjects. This conjecture leads to some intriguing implications, not the least of which is--”
“Move along with it, Torgo,” I said. “The Imp grows hungrier with every tick, and with every tock, my larder screams in fear.”
“Yes, sir. The key lies in diabolical deception. The agreement binds the behavior of both Lord Penumbra and the devil, but if the devil attempts to violate its stipulations, then he will have voided the contract, an act analogous to disrupting the continuity of the summoning circle.” Yatzi’s face scrunched as he tried to comprehend Torgo’s reasoning. Poor Yatzi; theory was his weakest subject at St. Werstan’s, except for all the others. Torgo added helpfully, “If Lord Bulwark could trick the devil into violating the agreement, Lord Penumbra would be freed, like a devil no longer bound by a summoning circle.”
“You mean, I’ll run amok, smashing furniture and devouring the summoner’s heart? That seems a bit extreme. The poor blighter seemed nice enough, for a devil--”
“I believe Lord Penumbra has taken my analogy a bit further than intended,” Torgo said. “I merely meant you would be free from the contract.”
“Oh, jolly good. Because I really don’t think I could eat devil’s heart. Although,” he said, tapping his lips with a darkened finger, “on second thoughts, I quite like a lot of things braised. Do you think I could braise it first? That may be--”
A few short, sharp syllables and energetic twiddles of my fingers, and a clear bubble encased Yatzi’s head, protecting us from his nasal voice but allowing him to continue to enjoy the sound.
As Torgo and I watched Yatzi chatter away behind Bulwark’s Blessed Becalming, I said, “I’m all for benevolence toward friends, Torgo, but I’m not risking myself for Yatzi.”
“It is useless, I suppose,” Torgo said, “to call upon your school ties with Lord Penumbra.”
“Utterly.” Were his purple-tasseled loafer on the other foot, Yatzi would ankle it, barefoot, to another district. He had never been around when I needed his help: bail money after knocking Lord Mantis to the street (motive: drunken high spirits), a place to hide Grandmaster Pestilence’s stolen familiar (motive: drunken high spirits), a test subject for Bulwark’s Blazing Brig (motive: drunken low spirits). When I confronted him about it, his excuses were puny. His brother had died. He’d been enslaved by a djinn. The English army had conscripted him for the Great War. It was absurd, then, that I would risk the contents of my size 17½ collar for him. “Yatzi’s a bit of a wet, a perpetual weight upon society. If he wasn’t good for the occasional sporting tip, Torgo, I’d have dropped him years ago.”
“Very good, sir. Shall I eject Lord Penumbra through the most convenient window, or should I carry him to the tower parapet first?”
“Let him stay.” I glanced at Yatzi, who was blissfully chattering on. “Perhaps he’ll get out of his predicament on his own.”
“I fear that’s unlikely, sir. But if you were to help Lord Penumbra with his present difficulty, you might gain an advantage against Grandmaster Imperialis.”
“Eh? How’s that?”
“You, posing as Lord Penumbra, may be able to open new negotiations with the devil to gain additional favors for yourself.”
I furrowed my b. “Why would the chappie allow that?”
“Although the devil is entitled to Lord Penumbra’s soul, he cannot gain full possession of the item until Lord Penumbra passes on. It’s a standard clause in all infernal contracts, allowing the debtor time to start legal proceedings or other creditors to file liens, and it covers the rare miracles of the soul flying away, like a bird, to Heaven.”
“Dum spiro sparrow, eh, Torgo?”
“Something along those lines, sir. But if you, impersonating Lord Penumbra, were to waive those rights and give the devil full possession of the soul at an earlier date--say, at the end of the week--the devil traditionally will grant a boon in return. If you use the favor immediately, you could rid yourself of the looming presence of Grandmaster Imperialis--perhaps by instituting a reconciliation between him and his wife, or depositing him in an even more congenial abode.”
“Say no more, Torgo. A favor.” This put matters on a quite different standing. “Or maybe two or three favors? Four?”
“However many your lordship can extract from the devil, although they are reputed to be excellent negotiators. As long as you can convince the devil to alter the contract; when the devil attempts to collect Lord Penumbra’s soul early, without compensating Lord Penumbra, Lord Penumbra will be able to claim the devil was attempting to unilaterally alter the contract, making it null and void. Infernal law is quite clear on the subject--”
“There is a flaw in your plan, Torgo--to wit, Yatzi and I do not resemble each other, except in the ways that any two human beings resemble one another: two arms, two legs, that sort of thing.”
“Yes, sir. But many experts on the subject, including Grandmaster Imperialis himself, claim devils have great difficulty detecting differences even between two individual humans exhibiting extreme dissimilarities.”
“In other words, we all look alike to them.”
Torgo’s head twitched downward. “As you say, sir.”
Devils might be excellent bargainers, but I’d wager this one had never run into a Bainbridge! The possibilities had me salivating. “Very well, Torgo.” I snapped my fingers, dispelling Bulwark’s Blessed Becalming, and Yatzi’s voice assaulted us again:
“--but I rather think my mother would be altogether too gristly, not at all worth the time to sharpen the butchering knives. Now, my aunt--I say, why are you two looking at me like that?”
“Never mind, Yatzi. Torgo, if you need me, I’ll be in my library, preparing.” If I remembered correctly, I had a few tomes on negotiation to bolster my already considerable abilities. “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, Torgo. I admit, I haven’t lived up to my potential, devoting myself to fine food and leisure. But sooner or later, a man must step out of the shadow of the callow boy he used to be and cast a new, darker shadow. Now, step lively, Torgo. Those stoats aren’t going to clean up after themselves.”
Yatzi looked between us, comprehending my speech in the same manner that a dog might understand the fifth Henry’s St. Crispin’s Day speech. “Did I miss something?” he asked.
“Very good, sir.” The words could have frozen a dragon’s heart. He scuttled off, narrowly avoiding knocking over the vase of lilies by the door. Yatzi flowed after him. I legged it to my closet, considering whether the paisley or puce cravat would best complete my laboratory ensemble.
#
While studying, I spied on Torgo using Leona’s Lenses of Supervision. Although he had performed his work competently, he had lacked his usual verve. Afterwards, he complained the stoats had become impossible to groom or feed, as physical laws were evaporating into the aether around them, and their feed unraveled into their elemental particles even as he dispensed them into what once had been their food bowl and was now an undulating blob of eau de cologne with a plum suspended at its center.
Although our relations were glacial, Torgo did not allow his lack of gruntlement stop our plan. The next day, to occupy our freeloaders, Torgo roasted a pig large enough to give a python pause and set it before Yatzi and the Imp. As two porcines devoured a third, Torgo and I readied the lab: The summoning circle was circled, the flambeaux flambéed, and after a quick slash of Torgo’s palm over the chalk circle’s center, the blood bled. I placed Bulwark’s Baleful Barrier upon the door, then repeated the words Yatzi gave me to summon the devil. I felt like a right ass too; infernal chants are bog simple, lacking any sort of lyrical creativity or melody. It’s a bit like singing a children’s song when you’re an adult, although a summoning chant would appeal only to quite evil anklebiters.
After the last notes passed through my syrinx, the diabolical fellow appeared, raising a dark cloud of the old fire and b., although I could have done with more of the fire and less of the other. His horns were polished to an admirable gleam, but he overdid it on the sartorial front. Purple pinstripes on a gray tropical suit was simply not done by the fashionable gentleman this season, and the flame motif on his tie, while thematically appropriate, clashed with the rest of the ensemble. I had to admire his shoes, though, which must have been custom-made for his hooves. “Who has summoned me?” he shouted.
“Oh, me--I did it,” I said after checking my aural apparati were still in place. “Uh, that is, Claudius Percival Luftbridge Abercrombie Yasleigh, the third Lord Penumbra.” The devil didn’t say anything, so I added, “Also known as Yatzi.”
The devil turned the volume down from “assault with a deadly” to mere battery. I was grateful but decided not to mention it, as it might weaken my negotiating position. “Why have you brought me to this forsaken place of ritual and accursed magic?”
This red-skinned fellow had nerve calling my lab “forsaken” and my magic “accursed,” considering where he spent his winters, but I soldiered on. “I want a boon in return for shortening your waiting period on my soul,” I said.
“So soon? Most resist the temptation for decades. Some give in within a year. Rarely will anyone summon me within--” Here the demon snapped his fingers, and a yellowed scroll appeared in his hands. “Within three days.”
I didn’t like the look of that parchment; I had a feeling its original owner came not from the barnyard but the farmhouse. “Well, to get to the crux of the root of the heart of the matter, I envisioned receiving a little more than one boon--perhaps two or three or five ...”
Torgo gasped. “Master, I don’t think that’s a wise course--”
I waved at Torgo in what I thought was a reassuring manner. “Tut, and tut-tut. I have this matter in hand.”
“Why should I negotiate with you, little debtor?” the devil said, looking between the contract and me with more interest than I cared to attract. “I am a patient being. I have eternity.”
At the doorway, I saw Yatzi bounce off my invisible barrier. His lips were moving, and he was pounding the air with his fist, but we couldn’t hear either, thanks to my extraordinary spell. “Sooner’s better than later, isn’t it?” I shrugged. “It’s not like souls gain interest.” Although maybe they did. I had no idea why devils were so interested in souls; they were as flimsy as an elderly handkerchief and less useful for wiping the nose.
The devil rumbled. From the way the devil gripped his belly, it might have been a stomachache or laughter. “And why should I not grab you by the ankles and dash your head against the stones?”
I was a bit taken aback by that boffin buster. Why shouldn’t he kill me? Seemed a rather simple solution. “Because it’s prohibited in the contract?” I asked.
As the devil scanned the contract, the Imp joined Yatzi. The Imp made a few twiddles toward the door, but even a grandmaster, I thought, would need a miracle to get past Bulwark’s Baleful Barrier, and the presence of a devil seemed an unlikely place to find one.
Eventually, the devil narrowed his eyes and growled, so I supposed I had guessed correctly. “So what favor can I grant you, in return for your immediate abandonment of your claim to your soul?”
I was about to elucidate my list of boons when my barrier fell with a pop! that disrupted my ticker. Yatzi charged into the room, heedless of Torgo’s wild gestures. “Settle an argument for us,” he said as Torgo grabbed his arm. “Is the witch’s cauldron at the Savoy a dessert with meringue or the other thing?”
“A mixed drink made with absinthe, Champagne, and baboon’s blood,” the Imp said, with an impressive amount of contempt in his voice.
I paused, diverting a few of my wits toward the unexpected question, while keeping the rest focused on the devil. “It’s--”
“I thought it was a soup made with whatever leftover bits of reptile you had lying around,” the demon said. “Is it something different here, Yasleigh?”
“No--I mean, yes--confound it, you devil,” I said, cutting off Yatzi. “Don’t try to dodge the real question: how many favors I’ll get for Yatzi’s--er, my soul. I was thinking five--”
“Five?” Yatzi wailed. “But it’s my soul!” Torgo’s hand dropped from Yatzi’s arm, and his face fell with a rather cacophonous crash. Yatzi stepped forward and poked the devil in the chest. “Look here, my fine fellow. If anyone is going to be given something in return for my soul, it’s going to be me. And to think I stood up for you in front of these people! I even refused to eat your heart!”
“You attempted to deceive me?” the demon rumbled at me. I suddenly noticed how pointed his horns looked.
“Of course I did,” Yatzi said. “Only way to get my soul back. I need my soul--”
The devil laughed, and the mortar in the walls began to flake. I sidled toward Torgo. “Let me guess: None of my spells will be enough to stop his infernal might?”
“I’m afraid that’s so, sir.”
“A hasty retreat is in order, then?”
“Most assuredly, sir.”
We stampeded the doorway, but an impressively large and warm hand wrapped around my ankle before I could make the egress. The floor rushed to meet me in an unpleasant way; I tried to call out to Torgo for help, but my skull whacked against the stone floor, dislocating my tongue. Torgo disappeared down the hall. He was replaced by the corpulent form of the Imp, who squatted in front of me.
“Where do you keep the absinthe, Beanie?” he asked. “This argument has lodged the taste of a witch’s cauldron in my mind, and I can’t seem to dislodge it.”
Before I could respond, the Imp’s spherical form receded. With a start, I realized I was the one receding, lifted into the air by the devil by one hand, with Yatzi (still trying to argue his case) in the other, and the demon looking at us as if he were deciding which of us to foreclose upon first. I attempted to encourage him to devour Yatzi first, but for some reason, the imminent danger made it hard to suck in the old O2.
As I gasped, Torgo returned, carrying what once had been the stoats’ cage but was now a snarled tennis net. As he entered the lab, he stumbled over his own feet, flinging the net toward us. When the stoats hit the floor, the net transmogrified into a flock of butterflies, which blocked my view of the proceedings in a cloud of blue and yellow.
By the time the lepidopterans dispersed, the stoats had chewed their way through most of the contract. The demon snarled, dropping us to rescue the document. The double vision imparted by the second meeting of my skull with the stone floor made the next bit hard to follow, even though seeing two of everything should have made it twice as likely that I’d comprehend. But I’m relatively sure the stoats zipped toward the demon’s throat like arrows from a stoat-firing bow. “I object--this violates the Mortal / Infernal Act of 1438!” the demon protested while flailing at them. “Not to mention the precedent of Parker v. Applegate! This is highly irregular! I demand--”
Then the stoats’ teeth and reality-unravelling field dropped him supine. By the time Torgo got the stoats under control--a process I’m not sure I could’ve followed even had my noggin not been addled--there wasn’t much left of the poor devil: just his torso, which had been torn open to reveal its considerable heart. I felt my most recent meal start to rise, so to prevent it from reaching the top floor and disembarking through my mouth, I quitted the lab for my room with as much dignity as I could muster, consoled to be in possession of both body and soul.
#
I decided to remain in my boudoir until the Imp had eaten every crumb and was forced to move on to the next village, but Torgo chivvied me out of my room with the promise of a meal the Imp would not devour, and I toddled down to see this impossible dish. Yatzi was already waiting, fork and spoon in hand, and Torgo had laid out the best of the Bainbridge flatware. I was shocked the Imp was not already in evidence--the smell was, unless I was theologically confused, heavenly, and the Imp’s sniffer was not deficient in the least--but I had enough moments to enjoy a claret or three before his corpulence arrived. His lips were flecked with drool, and I agreed with his autonomic response. When would Torgo deliver the source of that delightful scent?
When the Imp plopped his fundament onto a chair, Torgo lurched toward the kitchen, returning with a platter heaped with rib bones, surrounding a steaming, heroic-sized heart that looked conspicuously like what the stoats hadn’t consumed. Rather than explaining his jape, Torgo’s knife sliced through the matter of the heart.
Six wide eyes tracked Torgo as he put slices of the braised heart on our plates; three tongues made not a sound. “Bon appétit, sirs,” Torgo said, withdrawing.
We looked at the steaming flesh on our plates. Even though I was sure the heart was only a facsimile, I was at sea as to Torgo’s plan, and my stomach churned to unknown tides. The Imp squinted at me, his face as green as I felt. “It certainly smells wonderful,” Yatzi said. He sliced the meat cautiously, then stabbed a morsel with his fork. “I bet it tastes like goat--cloven hooves, and all that.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Betting’s what got you into this.”
The heart cooled and conversation froze. “You should really have a word with your man, Bainbridge,” the Imp said, his tone so cold Lord Kelvin could not have measured the frostiness. “This jest goes too far.” I maintained my sangfroid and reassured the Imp I would have a h.-to-h. with Torgo.
A few more minutes ticked their tocks. I told myself to calm down. At worst, this was the heart of a lawyer. I had fantasized of vengeance upon lawyers, especially that one who had prosecuted me for biffing Lord Mantis--
The sound of a knife against my grandmother’s china halted my train of thought. “I know I said I wouldn’t,” Yatzi said, lifting his fork to his mouth, “but that was before I knew how good it would smell, and I really think I could eat anything braised.” Yatzi chewed, eyes rolling back in delight. “Just as I thought: like goat.”
The Imp lurched from the room, eyes wide and mouth clenched shut, followed by the sound of retching from the hall bath. “Torgo,” I called, pushing away the plate, relief soothing my queasy abdomen, “I was wrong to doubt you.” Yatzi agreed around another mouthful. “This was a crackerjack simulation, Torgo.”
Torgo emerged from the kitchen. “Oh, no, sir--it’s the demon’s actual heart.”
“It’s delicious, that’s what it is,” Yatzi said as he speared the slice off my plate.
I followed the Imp, in thought and deed.
#
The Imp fled that very evening, resolving to repair matters with this wife. Before he bolted into the blue, he made some rather fruity remarks about Torgo that might have bruised my delicate sensibilities, had I not been so happy to see him leave. Torgo gave him the stoats, with my belated blessings. I couldn’t begrudge Torgo the gesture; it was a small price to pay to smooth over Torgo’s feelings, and the furry, reality-consuming beasts seemed to blot the Imp’s memory of his food making the reverse journey through his esophagus and mouth. Yatzi departed soon after, in possession of his soul and a picnic basket filled with leftovers from our dubious repast. I passed him a few surplus guineas and urged him to enjoy them far away from me.
I settled into a bath, exulting in my hard-won isolation, but before I could lose myself in the bubbles, Torgo barged into my sanctuary with the day’s post. I sighed. “What is it that could not wait until my skin had thoroughly pruned up, Torgo?”
“You have several bills--”
“Which, by my standing orders, always wait.”
“There is a summons from Grandmaster Pestilence, marked ‘urgent.’”
I gave Torgo the eye, wondering if GM Pesty held any grudges over my theft of his familiar. “What does he want?”
“Grandmaster Pestilence requests you attend his annual dragon hunt in Essex. He says he particularly wants you to make the acquaintance of an Iberian blue he has been preparing for the event.” Torgo cleared his throat, a sound like gravel being churned by a purple worm. “However, if you’d rather, Grandmaster Saddleback’s conclave still has more than a week to run--”
“Say no more, Torgo. R our SVPs post haste, and then start packing for Epsom.” A smile wobbled across Torgo’s visage, and he scrambled away to do my bidding. I leaned back among the bubbles and sighed. I didn’t want to leave, but after the Imp and Yatzi’s departure, I was so full of bonhomie for my fellow man I couldn’t refuse Torgo. And after all, I deserved a reward after vanquishing the demon and the Imp, didn’t I?
Bryan D. Fagan lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with his spouse and two black cats. A former librarian, he has co-written a non-fiction book about comic books in libraries.