The Devils & Demons MEGAPACK ®: 25 Modern and Classic Tales Read online

  One night as he was leaving the theatre she sidled up to him and slipped her arm through his.

  “How’s my beeg boy?” she whispered huskily. “Still too busy for leetle Renee?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Carson said, tactfully disengaging her arm, “I have a date tonight with—”

  “Who is she?” Renee blazed.

  “Oh just a girl,” Carson said uneasily. “No one you’d know. She’s a cousin of mine, as a matter of fact.”

  “You’re lying,” Renee said smoulderingly. “If you were my man, cherí, and ever looked at another woman, do you know what I’d do?”

  “I can imagine,” Carson said, shuddering mentally.

  “I’d cut your heart out,” Renee hissed. “Then I’d cut the woman’s heart out. After that I would cut my own heart out!”

  Carson swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.

  “Kind of messy, I’d say,” he muttered inanely. “I mean, wouldn’t a nice quick round of bullets do the job a bit more neatly? Don’t decide right away,” he cried hastily. “Think it over carefully. Can’t rush into these things, you know.”

  With that he wheeled and scuttled out of the theatre, and was unable to relax until he reached his luxurious study and had soaked himself with a number of double shots of brandy.

  Then his courage returned.

  “Silly of me,” he said stoutly to the life-size portrait of Carson Carruthers which hung over the mantel. “Silly to get worked up over a simple matter of a girl.”

  He had another brandy, and was composing the speech with which he would dust her out of his life forever, when his butler opened the door and announced that a Mr. Minion wished to see him.

  “Minion?” Carson said blankly. Then he remembered.

  “Show him in,” he cried heartily. It was to Mr. Minion that he owed everything.

  Mr. Minion entered the spacious room looking exactly as Carson had seen him in the tacky room of the brown-stone house, two months ago. He still wore the shiny serge suit and high collar, and his round red face still wore its expression of silent admiration.

  “Delighted to see you, my dear fellow,” Carson cried. “Sit down, won’t you?”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Minion replied politely. He seated himself gingerly on the edge of a red leather chair.

  “Everything going well with you?” he inquired pleasantly.

  “Splendid,” Carson said heartily. He was glad he had on his red silk dressing gown, and was smoking a cigarette in his foot-long holder. It gave him a feeling of nonchalant importance.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Mr. Minion said earnestly.

  “Yes, things are excellent,” Carson said, resting his elbow on the mantle. “Was there anything in particular you wished to see me about?”

  Mr. Minion shook his head with a little smile.

  “No. Nothing at all. I just happened to be passing, and I thought I’d drop in and see that you were—ah—keeping fit.”

  Carson yawned elaborately.

  “In that case, since I’m rather exhausted—”

  Mr. Minion stood up.

  “I hope I haven’t bored you,” he said anxiously. “I really must be going.”

  “So soon?” Carson asked, leading him toward the door. “Feel free to drop in any time, Mr. Minion. Although my art is a stern and trying master, I always have time to say a few words to old friends. Good night, Mr. Minion.”

  “Good night,” Mr. Minion said pleasantly. “Until we meet again, enjoy yourself.”

  Carson closed the door on the little man’s round figure, a faint frown creasing his brow. He found himself curiously disturbed by Mr. Minion’s visit.

  “Nonsense,” he told himself severely. “You’re just tired. You give too much of yourself to the theatre. A night’s sleep will fix you up.”

  So he went to bed, but he found it strangely hard to get to sleep.

  * * * *

  In the morning Carson thought more about Mr. Minion’s visit, but in the sunny brightness of a new day he was able to smile at his nervousness of the previous evening.

  It was only logical for the fellow to pop in from time to time. After all they had signed a contract.

  It occurred to Carson for the first time that he had never read the contract which he had signed in the brown-stone house two months previously.

  “Always the artist,” he sighed. “Too preoccupied with the drama of Life to pore over musty scraps of paper.” Then he hurried to his closet to find the contract, which he remembered having stuffed carelessly into the coat he had been wearing.

  The suit was fortunately still in his wardrobe, and his anxious fingers plucked from its pocket the bulky sealed contract which he had accepted from Mr. Minion.

  Seating himself in a comfortable chair and lighting a cigarette, Carson broke the seals of red wax and spread out the contract. The contract was written in long hand, with many Spencerian flourishes, and at the top of the paper was the name Carson Carruthers. “Ah!” Carson said, “top billing.” Then his eyes dropped to the body of the contract. It read:

  The above named, who shall henceforth be known as the party of first part does hereby transfer to Satan, who shall henceforth be known as the party of the second part, his corporeal substance intact and complete. This transfer shall take place not later than two months after the signing of this unholy contract. In consideration of this, the party of the second part, who is alias Lucifer, Beelzebub, Old Nick etc., does agree to give the party of the first part such monies and material possessions as he does demand. (In this case a half-million dollars. M.)

  Witnessed by Satan’s personal minion.

  Signed, Carson Carruthers

  On the bottom were the words His Mark and the stamp of a cloven hoof!

  Carson read the contract three times before he made any sense out of it. According to this preposterous contract he had sold his body to the devil! What a silly idea! Someone was trying to pull his leg, that was obvious. For whoever heard of anyone selling his body to the devil? A soul maybe, but certainly not a body.

  He re-read the contract again, chuckling. According to it the time limit of two months would be up—why it would be up today! Today was the deadline.

  Carson stood up and tossed the parchment onto a table. It was all so absurd. Even to the point of being witnessed by the devil’s personal minion.

  It was then Carson recalled that the round little man who had arranged the deal had called himself Mr. Minion. That gave him a slight start.

  “But it’s all so perfectly ridiculous,” he said aloud, a moment later.

  Then another question popped into his mind.

  If everything was so silly, why had the man who called himself Minion given him the half-million dollars?

  Carson Carruthers was not superstitious, but he did have a streak of caution in his make-up.

  “I think I had better see this fellow, Minion,” he muttered nervously.

  * * * *

  He dressed hurriedly and left his apartment. Downstairs he called a cab and gave the driver the address of the brownstone house in lower Manhattan. Settling back against the cushions, his poise returned. When he saw Minion, he’d get this thing straightened out in a hurry. If anyone was trying to play practical jokes on Carson Carruthers they’d rue it before he finished with them.

  The lines of a play, in which he had been a spectacular flop, came to him.

  “The blighters will know the feel of my steel, before another sun has set,” he cried grimly.

  “What?” the cabby said, shooting a startled look back at his fare.

  “Er-nothing,” Carson said. “How much farther?”

  “Block or so,” the cabby answered, swinging his hack off the boulevard into a side street.
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  Carson recognized the houses on the street. They were all two story wooden structures, and they stood out in his mind because they were all so different from the five story brownstone in the middle of the block. The five-story brownstone which he had visited two months ago to the day.

  The cab came to a stop. The driver looked back at him questioningly.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  Carson looked out and saw that they were parked in front of a deserted, vacant lot.

  “This is the address you gave me,” the cabby said, answering the unspoken question in Carson’s large grey eyes.

  “But it can’t be!” Carson cried. “The house I want is a five-story brownstone. It’s in this block. It must be farther down.”

  The cabby shook his head.

  “I know the neighborhood pretty well,” he said, “and there ain’t never been any house like that along this street. Are you sure you got the right address?”

  Carson was sure, but thinking the thing over, he decided that he must have made a mistake. There was certainly no house in this block that even resembled the one he had visited. The only thing to do was to check the address from the advertisement in the newspaper.

  “Drive me to the office of the Standard,” he ordered.

  * * * *

  The girl in the filing department of the newspaper was courteous and efficient. She brought him a bound volume of the paper and helped him find the issue of the date he was seeking.

  Carson thanked her and turned quickly to the help wanted columns. His finger ran down the second column to where he remembered he had seen the ad.

  A worried frown creased his forehead. The ad didn’t seem to be in the same place. He ran through the entire five columns of help wanted ads, but he found nothing that even faintly resembled the ad he had answered.

  He called the courteous, efficient girl and informed her that something was wrong with the paper.

  She in turn, called the department manager and informed him that this gentleman had informed her that something was wrong with the paper.

  “I answered an ad in this paper,” Carson explained desperately. “Now I can’t find it. The ad has gone, disappeared, vanished.”

  The courteous efficient girl and the department manager exchanged looks.

  “Ads don’t vanish,” the department manager said, with just a touch of coldness in his voice. “Not from the Standard anyway. However we shall check our files and see if such an ad as you describe has been listed in our columns.”

  In ten minutes the courteous, efficient girl informed Carson that no such ad had ever been placed in the columns of the Standard.

  “Th-thank you,” Carson mumbled.

  He left the newspaper office and went to his apartment. As he strode into his lounge, a small, round figure stood up from a chair before the fireplace and smiled at him.

  “How do you do?” Mr. Minion said pleasantly.

  “You!” Carson choked. “Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been in—”

  “Don’t say it,” Carson said frantically. “Not if its where I’m afraid you’ve been. Tell me about all this nonsense of selling my body to the devil. It isn’t true, is it?”

  “It is quite true,” Mr. Minion said with all of his old pleasantness. “You signed the contract and everything is quite definitely legal. The transfer will take place tonight at twelve.”

  “But why?” Carson cried, “does he want my body? I thought he dealt in souls.”

  “His Malignancy desires to spend some time on Earth in human form. Naturally he must have a human body for this purpose. I was sent up to handle the legal end of things. He insisted on a handsome body, so I selected you. I am sure he will be quite delighted with my choice. If things work out as I hope I may be promoted to foreman of a brimstone crew.”

  “Stop it!” Carson cried. “It’s all some terrible joke. I don’t believe a word you say. I’m going out to get drunk and when I get back you’d better be cleared out of here.”

  “Enjoy yourself until twelve,” Mr. Minion smiled.

  Carson tore out of the apartment and headed for a bar. As he climbed on a stool and ordered a double brandy, a soft familiar voice cooed in his ear.

  “Eet is Renee’s beeg boy out for a good time, no?”

  Carson jerked around and saw that Renee, clad in a slinky black satin dress, was perched on the stool next to him. Her piquant face was lighted with an insinuating smile, and in the depths of her deep eyes slumbering fires lurked dangerously.

  “Have a drink,” he said abruptly.

  “Have lots of drinks. Let’s everybody get drunk.”

  “Babeey!” Renee cried happily…

  * * * *

  At eleven forty-five P. M. of the same day, Carson staggered into his library and collapsed on a couch. He was carrying a load of alcoholic beverages that would have taxed a ten-ton truck, and their fiery fumes created a fog before his eyes that cloaked the room in white vagueness. The furniture swam about before his eyes in a circular motion, but finally its rotary activity slowed to the point where he could distinguish a human figure whirling about in one of the chairs.

  He blinked his eyes to bring the circling figure into focus, and then was drunkenly sorry that he had done so. For Mr. Minion’s pink face emerged from the blur and assumed a stationary position before him. Mr. Minion was facing him, smiling blandly.

  “Have a good time?” he asked companionably.

  Carson shuddered.

  “Go ’way,” he groaned.

  “Soon I will,” Mr. Minion said affably. “In a few moments my work will be completed.”

  The words shook Carson from his alcoholic stupor.

  “Now just a minute,” he said blearily. “Don’t give me any more of thish stuff about losing my body to Old Nick. It’s jush a lot of nonsense, thash all it is.”

  Mr. Minion sighed and glanced at his watch.

  “You shall see,” he said quietly. “You have made the bargain and soon you must satisfy your end of it.”

  The minutes ticked away in silence, and with each passing second, Carson could feel the effects of the brandy fading. A nervous sweat beaded his forehead and his hands twined together anxiously.

  He almost jumped a foot off the couch when the clock began to chime the hour of midnight. Then his blood turned to something like ice-water as an angry blast of air whipped through the room, rattling the pictures on the wall and lashing the heavy draperies into tangled swirls.

  Mr. Minion rose to his feet. There was a tense, expectant expression on his face, and in the depths of his eyes a nameless fear lurked.

  Suddenly the room seemed filled with a rumbling noise. Carson felt the stinging fumes of sulphur in his nostrils, and then a clap of thunder broke against his ears and a flash of lightning seared his eyes.

  When his eyes recovered from the sudden shock of the blinding light, he saw that another personage had entered the scene. And the commanding, black-clad height, the baleful glare of the new arrival, left him little doubt as to his identity.

  In the center of the room, arms folded, head thrown back arrogantly, Satan surveyed the scene with sardonic amusement.

  His raking black eyes swept from Mr. Minion to Carson Carruthers’ trembling figure on the couch.

  “Is this the man?” he demanded in a voice that sapped the juice from Carson’s spine.

  “Yes, Your Malignancy,” Mr. Minion said diffidently.

  * * * *

  If Carson had thought the whole affair a practical joke at one time, he had no such doubts now. This black creature he was facing was the real thing. He knew it. Although he could see only the black eyes through the heavy mask that covered the evil one’s face, they were enough to convince him. Those black eyes t
hat stared so covetously at him were old and hard and malignant beyond the imagination of any man.

  “I am satisfied,” Satan said abruptly.

  “N—now just a minute,” Carson said pleadingly. “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I signed that contract. Anyway, why do you want my body?”

  “I need it,” Satan said inexorably. His eyes flicked downward for an instant, Carson followed his gaze and saw the tip of a cloven hoof protruding from beneath the enveloping black cape Satan wore. Also he saw the pronged tip of a horrid-looking tail twitching restlessly.

  “I cannot walk the Earth in my present shape,” Satan said grimly. “I need a form such as yours for my purposes.”

  His long arms suddenly raised above his head and fingers spread like the talons of a mighty hawk. Carson saw the flashing lights in the black, malevolent eyes growing brighter before his swimming vision. But just at the instant his senses were leaving him, a shrill angry voice cut through the evil fog that was sweeping over him.

  “What the hell ees thees?” the enraged voice cried shrilly. “Who are theese people, Babeey?”

  Carson struggled bewilderedly to his feet. Standing in the doorway was Renee, her fiery dark beauty enhanced by the billowing white negligee she was wearing.

  At the sound of her voice Satan swept his cloak over his face and crouched close to the floor. Mr. Minion, for once, lost his expression of imperturbable affability. His jaw sagged dazedly.

  Renee stamped into the room.

  “Who are zey?” she demanded. Must we have a convention here the first night of our marriage?”

  “Marriage?” gasped Mr. Minion.

  Carson shook his head as his memory came back to him. After drinking all day with Renee, he recalled that they had gotten married in a little village in Connecticut. He remembered carrying her over the threshold of the apartment and then things had got blackish.