Nocturnal Emissions by Jeffrey Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

call them.”
    For several moments, Trendle hesitated. The dog snarled in the interim, its upper lip curling back to bare its slick teeth. Then, the reverend said, “My father built our cottage on a crossroads of two fairy paths, Venn. My two sisters and a brother died before the age of six. I’m sure it was the forces flowing through there that killed them. My father went mad, drank himself into the grave. My mother died not long after. But I, Venn…I survived.
    Where my family were poisoned, were leeched, I was made strong. I was a lightning rod.”
    “And you used this force to raise demons? In the service of the Lord?”
    “I do what I must!” Trendle spat.
    “Even murder priests?”
    “One man’s priest is another man’s infidel.”
    “You quote a chapter of the Bible that doesn’t exist in my own, John. But then you seem to have a personal acquaintance with our Master.”
    “I know Him better than you, Venn.”
    “There, you may be right. I don’t understand God. But these days, I’m not so certain that He even understands Himself.”
    “Blasphemer!” Trendle shouted hoarsely. In his fury, he almost staggered.
    “Tonight, you’ll die like the other two of your poisonous order!”
    “That,” Venn told him, “is quite impossible.”
    From one pocket of his coat, the old vicar produced a mallet. From the other, a chisel. Before the priest could even utter a sound of protest, the vicar bent over his massive dog, centered the point of the chisel between its eyes, and with one great blow hammered the spike deep into the animal’s brain.
    With a terrible yelp, its legs went out from beneath it, and it thumped onto its chest, its tongue lolling out only to be bitten in its snapping jaws. Its hind legs dug into the ground, but more in a nervous reflex than in an effort to rise.
    With a final convulsion that shook its entire frame, the animal died.
    Through his lenses, Venn saw the red eyes wink out. But at that same moment, a puff of black smoke like the dog’s final exhalation curled out of its half open mouth. This mist rose, and deepened, and broadened. It began to turn in on itself, to billow in reverse, to twist itself into something more tangible.
    Something with wings. And in its uppermost part, two red eyes with silvery pupils snapped open.
    The Hebrew letters fitted together like bricks. The cells were joined into a body. The demon took on its finished form.
    Though the creature’s skin was like obsidian, and it was naked and its flapping wings were like those of a raven, the red-eyed demon had the wrinkled, feral features of the Reverend Trendle. On legs bent crooked like those of a dog, and with fingers hooked into talons, the hovering being alighted on the ground and started toward the priest. Grinning wickedly.
    There was a screech like that of a hawk, a sound that seemed to rip the flesh down the length of Venn’s back. Then, from the night sky, another ebon figure alighted. A second pair of fiery eyes glared. Though this second demon had his own face—or because it had his own face—Venn was just as horrified by it as he was by the first. And yet it had answered his unspoken call. It followed his unuttered instruction. His genie freed from the lamp.
    The two demons flung themselves at each other, and Trendle cried out in rage and fear.
    Later, one of the farm laborers who had remained behind to futilely battle the fire would relate that in the glow of the blaze and the flashes of lightning, he distantly saw the two clerics standing apart from each other. And they seemed to be bellowing, shrieking at each other. Or perhaps it was the wind, the thunder. He even thought he saw a whirlwind sweep up a funnel of dust between the two men. But he did not see—and even Trendle did not see—what Venn did through his stained glass lenses.
    The two demons tore at each other with their claws, gouging each other’s naked flesh, tearing fistfuls of glossy feathers from the other’s wings.