Demon Bound

of raising the spirits had fetched.
    Jayne Poole opened the door and drew back, like one did when they found salesmen on the stoop. “Oh,” she said. “You’ve found something?” Jayne Poole had a pinched, anxious air to her, like a thin, nervous dog with thin, nervous blood.
    “We did, Ms. Poole,” Pete said. “May we come in?”
    Jayne Poole stepped aside and gestured them into the dank bowels of the house, which still smelled like her parents even after the nearly full year since their deaths. Jack couldn’t blame her entirely for the grim memorializing that was going on—death by runaway beer lorry wasn’t the most dignified end a couple of posh twats could come to.
    Pete walked ahead of Jayne Poole, who moved slow and sloppy with pills or gin, or both. Jack would wager there was a regular Sid and Nancy doing a dance in her bloodstream.
    “We made contact with your mum and dad,” Pete said, “and spoke about the issue of the will. . . .”
    “Yes?” Jayne Poole chewed on her bloodless lower lip, one long square nail tapping her overbite. All that money, Jack thought, and the Pooles couldn’t fix their daughter’s traditional English teeth.
    “I’m terribly sorry,” Pete said. Jayne Poole put her hand on her throat, covering the large emerald pendant that sat in the hollow like a wart on a wicked witch.
    “What on earth is that supposed to mean, Miss Caldecott? I was Father’s favorite. I paid you good money . . .”
    Jack cleared his throat. “Not to split hairs, but your brother paid us, and it don’t change the result—you and he both get nothing. And incidentally, the old man? Not such a fan of yours.”
    Jayne Poole’s mouth flapped open, snapped shut, andshe jabbed her finger at Pete. “How dare he speak to me that way? How dare the both of you take our money and deliver this . . . this . . .
shite?
”
    Pete opened the camcorder and pressed the playback. Stuart Poole’s voice rattled through the sitting room, the windy, eldritch sound that ghosts on film took on.
    Two heat flowers blossomed on Jayne Poole’s cheeks. “It’s fake,” she said hotly. “You must have faked it. Father would never say such things. Patently ridiculous.”
    “Ms. Poole, we’ve done the job you paid us for,” Pete said, “and we’d like the rest of the money now.”
    Jayne Poole clopped over to the door on her spiked shoes, heels digging divots out of the soft wood floors. Jack thought of his flesh, and flinched. “Get out,” Jayne Poole snapped, flinging the door wide to let in the muted daytime sounds of Kensington. “You’ll get not one red cent from me, and you’ll be hearing from my solicitor.”
    “Ms. Poole,” Pete warned, her eyes going jewel-hard. “I advise you to think carefully before you decide not to pay us.”
    “What are you going to do?” Jayne Poole’s horsey lip curled back. “Put a curse on me?”
    “Don’t bloody tempt me,” Jack muttered, and grunted at the sharp pain when Pete jabbed him in the ribs.
    “I’ll deal with this,” she said, low. “Ms. Poole . . .”
    “Out!” Jayne Poole cried. “Out, right now, before I call the police.”
    Pete threw up her hands. “I would
love
to see you do that,” she told Jayne Poole. She shut the camera with a slap and shoved it into the bag. “Come on, Jack. We’re finished.”
    Jack followed Pete to the door, stopping on the threshold and turning his eyes back to Jayne Poole, who stood in the center of the foyer huffing like a well-coiffed freight train. “Your father hated you,” he told Jayne. “Right down to your greedy, rotten core, and it’s easy to see why. You’llsee him again sooner than you think, so perhaps you should spend your remaining years trying to become a bit less of a cunt.”
    Jayne Poole’s fists curled, and she let out a sound of fury, but Jack ducked out before she could land a blow. “You take care, now, Ms. Poole.”
    Pete rubbed her forehead as the door slammed behind them, leaving them with curious looks from the pavement population, tourists and posh types browsing in the nearby antique shop. Jack glared at the nearest group. “Take a photo or piss off.”
    “Must you do that?” Pete said. “To everyone we meet? Must you play the villain?”
    “Jayne Poole? That rotted-out bitch had it coming,” Jack said. He went around to the street and climbed in the passenger side of Pete’s battered Mini Cooper. Pete climbed behind the wheel, slinging the bag into the rear seat