How to Make Friends with Demons Read Online Free PDF Page A

when the bell above the door tinkled. We both turned.

    The figure looming in the doorway looked like the Ancient Mariner. The man's face was red as if from exertion and his grey hair hung lank at either side, almost plastered to a grey beard. His teeth were stained with nicotine. He wore an army greatcoat and strong fell-walking boots, one of which was laced with string. He shuffled deeper into the shop, and barely seemed to notice me there.

    "Seamus!" said Otto. "How are you, me old mucker?"

    "Just came in to say hello." Seamus's voice was crazed in the way of an Old Master painting. "You don't mind?"

    "I've told you before I don't mind. Don't mind a bit. William, this is Seamus, an old mucker from Desert Storm. Seamus, have a cup of tea."

    "We don't mention Desert Storm," said Seamus. He glanced at me from under huge eyebrows composed of tangled steel wires.

    Otto tipped me a salute. "Right. We don't mention Desert Storm."

    Christ, I thought, if he was a combatant in the first Gulf War he couldn't be more than about forty or fifty years old: yet he looked like someone who had drowned at sea a hundred years ago and returned as a ghost. "Let's not, then," I said, winking affably at Seamus. I don't know if it was my wink that offended him, but I felt a flash of tension run through his body. A thunderous expression passed across his face. He turned away from me rather obviously.

    "Shall I get that kettle on then, Seamus?"

    "No. Not stopping. Only came by to say hello." He glanced around the shop as if trying to remember something. Then he darted another look at me, as if I were someone not to be trusted.

    "There was a message for you," Otto said, opening his till.

    I saw Otto pull out a few large-denomination notes and stuff them quickly in an envelope. Then he came from behind the till and handed the envelope to Seamus, who took it without a word. That was Otto for you: sparing the finer feelings of a tramp who wouldn't have wanted me to witness this handout.

    Seamus folded the envelope and stuffed it in his army greatcoat pocket. He stared at the floor, as if slightly confused.

    "Sure you won't have that cup of tea, Seamus?"

    "Ah, that was it!" Seamus was suddenly animated. "That was it! I come to tell you I'm onto something! A secret!"

    "Oh, what's that?" said Otto.

    Seamus waved his hands in the air as if limply fighting off an aerial attack. "No! No no! I'll tell you when I have it all bang to rights. A secret! But you'll be the first one I tell, you will be! Now I have to be on my way. I've an himportant happointment ." He said these last two words as if mimicking the aristocracy. And he laughed. Still chuckling, he turned and shuffled out of the shop.

    "Poor fucker," Otto spat angrily after he'd gone. "Far worse than me. Got nothing. Fucking outrage." Otto turned away from me but I could see him thumbing back a tear. Then he turned back to me. "Seen it, have you? The book? With your own eyes?"

    "Not yet, Otto. I only know what I've been told. Which is: three volumes from a Victorian collector's library, half-titles supplied, occasional light foxing and offsetting , contemporary green half morocco, spines gilt, marbled sides, red sprinkled edges. Covers worn at spine and edges, joints starting. Modern slip case, of course. What you'd expect. An exceptional copy, they say."

    If it wasn't a fake I'd be interested in it myself, I almost added.

    "Hell's bells," Otto said. "All right, sod it: ninety-one-and-a-half."

     

Chapter 4
    Yes, of course the Pride and Prejudice was a fake. We should have had it ready there and then but there had been a small technical problem with my printer's nose: he'd pushed too many drugs up it. Then he'd been chased across his workshop by—and I had to laugh when he told me—demons. Not real demons, of course, but drug-induced fancies, which I suppose may at times seem just as terrifying as the real thing.

    The consequence of the fray was that a bottle of turpentine