Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

do no harm to me or to none of my little family, you hear me, demon?”
    I nodded. That much I could do.
    “Well, will you look at that?” Cawley said, seeming genuinely amazed. “This creature understands me.”
    “It’s just a trick to give you that impression,” the priest said.
    “Trust me, there’s nothing in his head but the hunger to drive your soul into the Demonation.”
    “What about the way he’s shaking his head? What does that mean?”
    “Means nothing. Maybe he’s got a nest of those Black Blood Fleas in his ears, and he’s trying to shake ’em out.”
    The arrogance and the sheer stupidity of the priest’s response made my head fill with thunderous rage. As far as O’Brien was concerned I was no more significant than the fleas he was blaming for my twitches; a filthy parasitic thing that the father would happily have ground beneath his heel if I’d been small enough. I was gripped by a profound but useless fury, given that in my present condition I had no way to make it felt.
    “I—I got—I got the hood,” Shamit gasped as he hauled something over the dark dirt.
    “Well, lift it up!” Cawley shrugged. “Let me see the damn thing.”
    “It’s heavy.”
    “You!” Cawley said, pointing to one of the three men now idling by the winch. The trio looked at one another, attempting to press one of the others to step forwards. Cawley had no patience for this idiocy. “You, with the one eye!” he said. “What’s your name?”
    “Hacker.”
    “Well, Hacker, come give this degenerate half-wit some help.”
    “To do what?”
    “I want the hood put on the demon, double quick. Come on, stop crossing yourself like a frightened little virgin. The demon’s not going to do you any harm.”
    “You sure?”
    “Look at it, Hacker. It’s a wretched scrap of a thing.”
    I growled at this new insult, but my protest went unheard.
    “Just get the hood over its head,” Cawley said.
    “Then what?”
    “Then as much beer as you can drink and pig meat as you can eat.”
    That deal put a charmless smile on Hacker’s scabrous face.
    “Let’s get it done,” Hacker said. “Where’s the hood?”
    “I’m sitting on it,” Shamit said.
    “Then move! I’m hungry!”
    Shamit stood up and the two men started to lift the hood out of the dirt, giving me a clear look at it. Now I understood why there had been so much gasping from Shamit as he carried it. The hood was not made of burlap or leather, as I’d imagined, but black iron, fashioned into a crude box, its sides two or more inches thick, with a square hinged door at the front.
    “If you try any Demonical trick,” Cawley warned me, “I will bring wood and burn you where you lie. Do you hear me?”
    I nodded.
    “It understands, Cawley said. “All right, do it quick! O’Brien, where are the shackles?”
    “In the wagon.”
    “They’re not much use to me there. You!” He picked the youngest from the two remaining men. “Your name?”
    “William Nycross.”
    The man was a behemoth, limbs as thick as tree trunks, his torso massive. His head, however, was tiny; round, red, and hairless, even to brows and lashes.
    Cawley said, “Go with O’Brien. Fetch the shackles. Are you quick with your hands?”
    “Quick . . .” Nycross replied, as though the question clearly tested his wits “. . . with . . . my hands.”
    “Yes or no?”
    Standing behind Cawley, out of his sight but not out of that of the baby-faced Nycross, the priest guided the simpleton by nodding his head. The child-giant copied what he saw.
    “Good enough,” said Cawley.
    I had by now realized that I was not going to be able to get my tongue to say something cogent, thereby wringing some compassion from Cawley. The only way to avoid becoming his prisoner was by acting like the bestial demon that he’d said I was from the start.
    I unleashed a low noise, which came out louder than I’d anticipated. Cawley instinctively took several steps back from me, catching hold of one