The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [78]
“By the heads,” said Paracelsus, turning and blowing out a few candles for better ambiance. “They would roll up the side of his house and down his chimney, and so his home was always cold, for on the nights he lit a fire they came just the same, dropping down into the hearth, and the stink of charring skin and burning hair would force him from the place. Every night they came, and so, he told me as I stood at his door after finding the inn full, he could not possibly put me up for the night, for he would suffer none to suffer as he suffered from those infernal guests.
“But I, a doctor then in deed if not yet in title, swore to see him through the night, and break the curse beside. And so I did, and in payment he gave me his sword, which I keep ever at my side.” Paracelsus leaned back on his stool, quite pleased with himself.
“Bullshit,” said Monique. “Lies.”
“The Lord God knows I am no liar,” said Paracelsus.
“But wait!” said Awa. “What about the rest of the story?”
“What do you mean? I broke the curse, I got the sword. End of story.” Paracelsus shrugged.
“How? How did you break the curse?” said Awa.
“Such things as how a magus lifts a curse are hardly the sort of topic for casual discussion,” said Paracelsus.
“He ’asn’t made that part up yet,” said Monique.
“Alright, then,” said Paracelsus, miffed. “Here’s what I did. First I asked when the trouble started, and he told me it came about the night after he had hanged and beheaded a warlock—the same warlock whose sword he now used. The condemned sorcerer had bequeathed it to him at the gallows, and upon retrieving the weapon from whatever farmer-with-a-barn who served as jailer in that awful place he found it to be of fine make, and all down those years it never lost its edge. So I examined the sword, found a secret compartment in the pommel, and inside the compartment was a piece of bone tied to a lodestone, with which the sorcerer had bound an imp to the sword, and by sprinkling this charm with salt and invoking the Lord’s name I forced the imp to tell me how to break the curse, which I then did, after sending the familiar, the imp, that is, back to Hell.”
Paracelsus’s audience had grown very silent, which was how he liked it. He went on:
“The task was simple—I had to smash each of the heads with the sword as they appeared in the hearth, which I did, and when the last desiccated skull was dashed the curse was broken. The hangman was so relieved that he gave me his sword as a gift, and that was that. The hanging I watched the following morning was, needless to say, not so interesting.”
The silence continued for a spell longer, then Manuel said, “That makes absolutely no sense at all.”
“Fuckin lyin quack!” Monique offered.
“No, it does, it does,” said Awa thoughtfully. “Breaking the skulls would sever the spirits, and if the charm in the sword had some other spirit, a familiar or imp or what you will, then it might summon …”
Awa realized she was talking aloud, and quickly snatched the bottle from a very interested Paracelsus. Manuel began laughing, a dreadful, strained cackle, and Monique joined in, slapping Awa on the back and nearly chipping her teeth on the lip of the bottle. This obnoxious riot continued until Manuel came up with something, which most assuredly was not much:
“She’s … always imitating the way other people sound for a laugh, is our Sister Gloria,” Manuel said. “Pretty good, eh?”
“Sounded just like the doctor,” agreed Monique. “Think ya’d picked up an echo, Doctor P?”
“My dear, tell me—” Paracelsus started but Monique cut him off.
“Now assumin for the moment ya ain’t a lyin fuckin quack, what say ya explain why ya believe in imps an’ other such devilry? Doctors not supposed ta be superstitious.”
“Superstition is equal parts imagination and reality we don’t yet understand,” the doctor said stuffily. “The Philosopher’s Stone, for example—”
Paracelsus rambled on for some time on matters alchemical and obscure until he had talked himself hoarse. Then Monique, who had not listened to a word he said, endeavored to explain the