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Speak of the Devil

Claude

I stood in the grand doorway of Stinkhorn Manor, staring at the spot at the end of the drive where Sonny had disappeared. Five, ten, thirty minutes passed. Oggy and Willow retreated into the house. Only John waited with me, like he had all the time in the world.

Sonny would come back. He’d told me as much. Even though he’d said he didn’t know when that would be. Months, probably, or years, or however long it took him to sort things out in Remy—publish his paper, speak with the dean of the university, sublet his apartment, whatever he needed to do.

I could just sit out the front of the house until he returned.

Maybe he might have forgotten something, and he’d have to turn the taxi back around.

Maybe what he’d forgotten was to tell me he loved me. And then I wouldn’t feel so guilty when I’d drop to my knees and beg him to stay. Beg him to stick around for the ritual. To choose me.

He wasn’t my father. He would be back.

There was a distant rumbling of tyres again, and the thing in my gut that told me Sonny would be back perked up. My heart started beating in triple time, my palms began sweating, adrenaline spiking, getting my body ready to run to him.

But the car rolling up the drive was blue.

Sonny had left in a black cab.

I wanted to lie on the ground and wail. It seemed like confirmation he wasn’t coming back. At least not today. But curiosity, and the weird way the wind seemed to silence itself, kept me on my feet.

The newcomer drove a convertible. Top down, even though the weather was mizzly and grey. There were two people in the car. Both men. One—the passenger—was fae, mater fae possibly. It was difficult to tell at a distance. He had long, platinum hair and his black eyebrows were knotted together in the centre. I didn’t recognise him. I did however, recognise the other guy.

The driver wore a navy suit, had green scales escaping from the collar of his jacket, and he was smiling manically. Cameron Greene, of Greene’s Property Management.

“What the fuck does this chump want now?” said John.

I did not have the wherewithal for politeness either.

“Mr Greene, your journey was wasted. I have not changed my mind,” I said, after the estate agent’s car pulled up to a stop six feet from where we stood.

“Good morning... John is it, these days?” the other man said, scowling at John from the passenger seat. If the fae had possessed the ability to throw flaming daggers from his eyes, John would have been toasted ribbons by now.

“Jacques,” John replied with a nod and an indecipherable quirk of his mouth.

The serpent shifter stepped out of the sports car and crossed the space to me. I didn’t extend my hand for him to shake. He didn’t extend his.

“Lord Stinkhorn, I’ve been trying to call you for days.”

“There has been an issue with the phone signal.” Like I was going to bother explaining Jenny’s depletion of power to this man. “My answer remains the same. I will not be selling Stinkhorn Manor, nor renting any part of the main house.”

Mr Greene nodded once, slipped his forked tongue over his top teeth, and gazed up and up at the closest turret. “Mmhmm. That is a shame. For you, I mean.” He tucked his hands into his front trouser pockets so his thumbs pointed towards his dick. “The building looks like a bunch of cocks, by the way. Did you know?”

“I’m acutely aware of that fact,” I said, mostly to myself.

The grand doors creaked open and Oggy peeked her head round. She eased herself through the gap. Willow followed.

“Mr Greene, Mr Rochefort?” Oggy said.

“What’s going on?” Willow said. Their sights flitted between Mr Greene and me, then John and the mysterious Jacques Rochefort.

“It’s okay, Oggy, Willow,” I said, looking at each of them. “These gentlemen were just leaving. I apologise for your wasted journey.”

Mr Greene laughed, hollow and patronising. Everything about him was patronising. His laugh, his expression, the “patient” hands he’d moved behind his back like a police officer. “Oh. Oh, no.” He tsked . “No, no, that’s not the case. At all.”

“I’m not interested in selling,” I told him, firmer this time.

“That’s truly a pity, but unfortunately, the decision is no longer yours to make.”

“Excuse me?” I said, as Willow said, “You what?” and John said, “Oh, fuck off.”

Mr Greene’s smile split his features open. It slid from one ear to the other, slick and disquieting. I shivered. It was like an icy finger being dragged up my backbone.

“Let me introduce you to my acquaintance, Jacques Rochefort, from the Agaricus Town Council,” Mr Greene said.

Jacques finally stepped out of Mr Greene’s convertible. He narrowed his eyes at John, then turned his attention to me. “Lord Stinkhorn, I’m afraid I do not bring good news.”

“Not according to that twit’s face,” John said, pointing at Mr Greene’s despicable smirk.

“John, please.” Jacques spared John a withering look. The kind that parents reserved for children who acted out in public. Then he arranged his features into something more closely resembling patience, and fixed his eyes on me. He presented me with a scroll. The ancient sort with rolling-pin handles. But it wasn’t ancient. The paper was crisp white and brand new.

I unfurled the top part. It had been printed with today’s date. Twentieth of June.

I unfurled it more.

John read it from over my shoulder, whispering, “What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?” the entire time.

Willow read it from under my elbow while Oggy sobbed.

On this day, notice will be served on Lord Claude Angus Pangus Stinkhorn, of Stinkhorn Manor, Agaricus, for the COMPULSORY PURCHASE ORDER of Stinkhorn Manor and The Night Cap Bed and Breakfast, by Agaricus Town Planning and Construction Authority.

Reasons sited for CPO: Unstable building, non-standard construction, non-compliance with building regulations, multiple violations of Health and Safety standards, live exotic and illegal animals kept as pets, ongoing threat to life, and harbouring unregistered cadavers.

Residents have 24 hours from service of notice to evacuate the premises. Demolition of the property will begin at 10:30 a.m. on 21st June. Any property left on site after this time will be signed over to Agaricus Town Planning and Construction Authority, and will no longer be retrievable.

To compensate you for the upheaval and distress this may cause, Agaricus Town Council is prepared to offer a one-time settlement fee equivalent to the current market value of 375,000 silvers.

Alternative arrangements may be made with one of Agaricus Town Council’s official business partners. These options will be made clear to you at the tendering of this notice.

“Has everyone finished reading?” I asked, unnaturally calmly. They nodded, seemingly unable to process the information or speak. I brandished the scroll at Jacques and Mr Greene in turn. “Kindly explain WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS!” I yelled, and followed it with a, “PLEASE!” because I was always forgetting those pesky pleases.

Mr Greene’s eyes widened, his tongue darted out, his smile never left his face.

Jacques gave a nervous cough. “For the reasons stated on the notice, we, Agaricus Town Council, are taking ownership of your property. It is a compulsory purchase order, meaning there is nothing you can do about it. The house will be levelled and the land auctioned off to developers.”

“Jacques, come on, man,” John said, placing a hand on the councillor’s forearm. Jacques followed the movement with his eyes. “I know things between us have been rocky since—”

“Don’t,” Jacques breathed.

“But this is my home, too,” John finished. “Where do you expect me to go? Move in with you and Felix?”

Jacques turned his head slightly, closed his eyes, and sucked at his teeth. Then, as though he’d reached a silent decision, he turned his focus back to John. “You have twenty-four hours to pack your belongings and vacate the grounds.”

“Absolutely not,” I said. I tried to rip the scroll through the middle, but the paper was made of some plasticky shit Sonny would hate, and it wouldn’t tear.

Mr Greene clicked his tongue like he was trying to summon a cat or a horse or something. He took the scroll from my hand. “Sell the property to me now, and I’ll give you five hundred thousand for your troubles.” From the inside pocket of his polyester suit jacket, he pulled out a sealed envelope. Presumably it held the new contract should I agree to sell to him.

“But you would also raze the building?”

“Semantics. Either way, the property will be flattened tomorrow,” he said with a shrug. “Would you rather receive three hundred and seventy-five thousand silvers or half a mil?”

John pointed to the scroll. “Ain’t no way the house is worth only that.”

“Over ninety-five percent of the property and the surrounding land is uninhabitable. The price is reflexive of that,” Mr Greene said. “There’s a gods-damned mortuary in there! And a room piled to the ceiling with actual shit.”

“I wasn’t speaking to you, you wankpuffin,” John said. He turned to the councillor, crowded right up into his space. “Jackie, please.”

Jacques assessed John for a long moment while my heart threw itself against my ribcage.

Was this really our only hope? Begging?

Then the fae buried his mouth near John’s ear and whispered something. Over my raging heartbeat, I had trouble hearing his words, though it sounded an awful lot like, “You had your chance.”

He straightened himself up, took a step back from John, and turned to me. “What’ll it be then, my lord. Will you take Mr Greene’s offer?”

“I will never sign that,” I spat.

Jacques sighed. “As you wish. Please summon the rest of the residents and explain to them they have twenty-four hours to pack.”

Nobody spoke for a while. Jacques’s words, or the way he’d said them, bounced around in my head and stirred something inside me. The beginnings of an idea.

“We don’t know where Mr Dupont is,” squeaked Oggy. “He’s missing. Never showed up for breakfast this morning. He never misses breakfast.”

The idea fizzed into something more. It might have been the stupidest, most risky idea I’d ever come up with, but desperate times. “Okay, I’ll summon the rest of the residents,” I began. “But you can be the one to explain the compulsory purchase order to them.”

Jacques bumbled. “Uh . . . well, I suppose—”

“Better idea!” I yelled, interrupting. “Mr Greene, if you can convince them to agree to the sale, I will accept your offer.”

“Deal!” Mr Greene said, tripping over his feet in his eagerness to shake my hand.

“Claude!” whined Oggy, as Willow said, “Nooo!”

Under his breath and loud enough only I could hear, John whispered, “You evil fucking genius.”

I suppressed my smile. It was far too early, and the idea too unpredictable to congratulate myself yet. But at this point, what did we have to lose?

Right... now, how exactly did I do this?

“Don’t say her name, okay? You wouldn’t want to accidentally summon her.”

“Summon her? Gods, is she some sort of daemon—”

I cleared my throat. “Mrs Ziegler?” I said, loud and clear, enunciating each individual sound.

Oggy gasped. Willow laughed. John took out his notepad.

“One of her more brilliant gifts is drawing every moment of guilt or regret from a person and playing them like a private movie inside their minds, reducing them to a cowering husk.”

“Mrs Ziegler!” I said again. Louder this time.

Jacques’s jaw dropped, his mouth hung open. Mr Greene frowned at me. Crossed his arms.

“Mrs Ziegler!” I said for a third and final time.

The air around us crackled like static electricity, my vision whited out for a fraction of a second as though a camera’s flash popped, and there stood Mrs Ziegler in the centre of all of us. Frizzy salt and pepper hair, slightly wrinkled face, purple leggings, a monochrome chevron-print hoodie, bumbag, and a microfibre towel draped around her neck like a scarf.

Mr Greene stared at Mrs Ziegler. His features slid from worry to amusement, and he started laughing.

Jacques, obviously sensing the correct level of danger now present, tried to wave a hand to alert his acquaintance, but John caught Jacques’s wrist, and pulled it down to his side.

“Can I have a moment alone?” he whispered to the councillor, who in return swallowed and nodded, though the pair remained rooted to the spot, transfixed by whatever was about to unfold.

Oh, shit. What had I done?

Mrs Ziegler smiled at each of us, then raised a curious eyebrow at Mr Greene. I saw the smile curve her lips and my stomach flipped.

“What a sorry excuse for an orgy this is,” Mrs Ziegler said, her eyes still fixed on Mr Greene. “Why have I been summoned in the middle of my morning yoga routine?”

I forced my voice to remain steady. “This is Mr Greene. He’s come to make us an offer to buy Stinkhorn Manor. If we do not accept the offer, the council will force us to sell. We will have to move by this time tomorrow morning and they will demolish the building.”

Mr Greene stepped forward. “Perhaps I could borrow a moment of your time to chat about my offer?” he said to Mrs Ziegler.

“Oh, how fun,” she said, as though presented with a novelty crossword puzzle. She winked at me, and I had the sudden premonition I’d have to bear witness at a murder trial. She placed her arm through the loop of Mr Greene’s elbow like the doddering old lady she pretended to be, and leaned closer to him. “Let’s take a walk around the grounds, shall we?”

“Let’s,” he agreed, still smiling, though considerably less manic than before.

“Please don’t kill Mr Greene,” I said to Mrs Ziegler.

Mr Greene laughed as though I’d been joking. But the smile was completely wiped from his face the second Mrs Ziegler said, “And where would the fun be in that?”

“He’ll be alright, won’t he?” I asked, as the rest of us watched the retreating backs of the serpent shifter and Hades, God of the Underworld, slipping into the forests surrounding the house.

“I hope so,” Oggy said.

“Not a chance in hell,” Willow added at the same time.

“Um, how long do we reckon they’ll be taking a walk for?” John slipped a sidewards glance at Jacques.

Jacques bit the corner of his bottom lip. “John, didn’t you have something important to show me in that semi-public orchard right over there?”

“Well, I’m not hanging around to witness either... activity.” I began to make my way inside. Oggy and Willow followed me.

“Would you like me to fix you some breakfast, since you were too sickly to eat this morning?” asked Oggy.

“I wasn’t too sickly. I was too sad.” I was still too sad, but the waning adrenalin from the encounter with the estate agent and the councillor had carved a desperate, primal need to refuel.

Instead of my usual eggs royale, Willow brought me a vegetarian fry-up. I wasn’t even vegetarian, not by any means. An unrestrained sob left my throat. In all the chaos of earlier, I had... not forgotten about Sonny, but he’d not been at the forefront of my thoughts.

He was now. Right there. Right at the front. Dominating every single thought. I couldn’t even call or text him. Hopefully, after the ritual tomorrow at sunrise, the house would have enough energy for me to FaeTime him. That was if it hadn’t been flattened by a team of bulldozers.

It wouldn’t be, not if Mrs Ziegler had anything to do with it.

I just needed to see him again. Hear his voice. Wish him good luck with his meeting.

That thought alone was going to carry me through the next twenty hours.

“That was rather clever of you to call on Mrs Z,” Willow said, pulling up a chair at my table.

“Thank you, Willow.”

“Hey.” They playfully punched my bicep. “You got my name right. I told you, you’d just know which one of us was which.”

“It was Oggy who said that,” I said.

Willow nodded. “How did you know it would work? The thing with Mrs Z?”

I took a deep breath and organised the swirling mess inside my head. “It was the word ‘summon’ and something the house had said to me a few weeks ago. It said that Mrs Z was actually Hades, imprisoned here at Stinkhorn Manor. That she had a gift for drawing out a person’s worst guilt and regrets and replaying them over and over until they dissolved into a puddle of misery, basically.”

“Wow, it didn’t lie for once,” Willow said. They got to their feet and made to leave.

“Sorry, what do you mean it didn’t lie for once?” I asked.

“The house, it’s a compulsive liar. I’m sure Oggy and I have warned you about it before. It lies, and it manipulates. It’s a big old attention seeker. A princess. It will tell you whatever it thinks you want to hear in order to get what it wants.”

My heart was racing again. “And what does it want?” I held my breath.

“Company mostly. And souls. Not like a daemon reaping souls, but... I believe it’s addicted to the...” Willow shot their gaze around the room, evidently looking for the correct word or for any eavesdroppers. “To the high it gets from other people’s emotions.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again, having found nothing of any consequence to add. That would explain why the house had created everything so perfectly for Sonny and me. Our rooms, forcing us to sleep in one bed, making all those idyllic places for us to fuck.

Shit, the house had pushed us together. Was it all Jenny’s fault I fell in love with Sonny?

Did I have Jenny to blame? Or to thank?

I was silent for a few moments while I ate and mulled over everything. Willow returned to the kitchens to help Oggy.

And then a thought occurred to me. A terrifying, stomach-churning, horrific thought.

“Willow?” I tried to keep my voice even... tried, and failed to stop the squeak at the end.

Willow popped their head around the door frame.

“The house... how do I know when it’s lying to me or telling the truth?” I asked.

“What about?”

“Well,” I picked at the edge of the tablecloth. “It told me it couldn’t say whether I’d figured out the ritual. It could only tell me when I had it wrong.”

Willow hmmed .

I continued asking my question. “So, now I’m wondering, has it lead me to believe wrongly?”

“About the ritual?”

“Yes.”

“What do you believe the ritual is?”

My heartbeat spiked, my pulse ticked wildly at the base of my neck. I felt like I was going to throw up Sonny’s breakfast. “That the rhizome ritual which must be performed twice a year—or it will die and you will be sent into the ether—is to glamour a bolt of lightning onto the ley lines...”

I held my breath, waited for Willow to say anything, but they simply stared at me, their eyes brimming with unshed tears.

“Fuck,” they whispered, as the realisation came crashing down around me, too.

My vision tunnelled. Everything except Willow and the table cloth swooped into blackness.

Holy shit. How had I been so stupid?

If lightning was the ritual, I would not have been able to say any of those words out loud. None of them. The ancient mushroom laws would have prevented me. Zipped my mouth shut like it had done with my mother.

I had said it over and over again to Sonny, but that would not have been possible if it were the real ritual.

“Oh, shit,” I said, standing so abruptly my chair toppled over.

Willow continued to stare open-mouthed at me. Tears now fell freely down onto the front of their tunic.

“Willow?” I said, fighting back my own tears.

Nothing.

“Willow?”

Still nothing. Total shock shut down.

“OGGY?!” I yelled, and Oggy came racing into the dining room, lilac hair contained within a net and a stripy pinny around her waist. “You need to get Willow something for shock.”

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“See to Willow first. I don’t want the same thing happening to you.”

Oggy ran off to fetch a sugary drink and a blanket while I paced the dining room, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

I couldn’t even call Sonny. There was no way to bring him back to help. I would have to figure this one out on my own.

All by myself.

I had—I glanced at the wall clock—nineteen hours and fifteen minutes.

“Oggy?” I said once the sentry fae had returned. “What does ‘into the ether’ mean?”

She swallowed, wiped her palms on her apron. “It’s . . . it’s . . .”

And then she passed out.

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