Free How to Make Friends with Demons by Graham Joyce

felt slightly ridiculous, striding ahead of a porter roughly half my size and a one-eyed dog. The porter, trailing blue pipe smoke, held the dog's leash in one hand and his horde of a hundred keys in the other. When we reached the Lodge, rather than tether the Alsatian outside, he dragged the animal in with us.

    I had a box of junk at the ready in my room—I no longer wanted to stow my antiquarian books in the attic—and quickly caught up with the porter as he swept upstairs. I balanced the box on my knee as he performed the time-consuming ritual of identifying the key. When he got the attic door open, he let the dog go ahead of him and then stepped inside.

    "Stone the crows!" he said.

    "God," I said, coming up behind him. "I don't like that."

    The porter's jaw dropped and he snatched the pipe from his mouth. I could see a row of metal fillings in his nicotine-stained teeth. He was looking at the goat's head.

    "That's not nice."

    "No," I agreed. "Not nice at all." I was waiting for him to declare that he would have to report this to the college authorities, but something happened.

    The dog, which had stopped in its tracks in the middle of the room just like its master, cocked its head as if listening intently. Then it cocked its head to the other side. Suddenly it snapped its jaws at the thin air.

    Next the dog gave a yelp, rolled violently on its side, scrambled up again and without warning ran full pelt at the small porthole window at the far end of the attic. The dog's nose hit the glass with full force, like a punch. The glass cracked but held as the dog rocked back, dizzy from the impact. Then it leapt at the glass a second time, whimpered, turned and ran out of the room trailing piss.

    "Luther! Come 'ere!" The porter tried to call back his dog, way too late. The creature had bolted.

    In another context I might have found it funny. But I didn't like what I'd just witnessed one little bit.

    "This is bad." The porter looked at me. All his slothful confidence had vanished. "Bad."

    "I want to go," I said.

    I left first. The porter had a last look round the attic room and slammed the door behind him, as if to lock something inside.

    Nothing else happened that evening. By mid-morning of the next day a letter appeared, pinned up on the notice board by the stairs, informing us that "a serious occurrence" had taken place and that we were all to be interviewed in turn and in our rooms by the college chaplain, Dick Fellowes.

     

    My simple plan had been to toss my " he's on to you " squib at each of my prime suspects in descending order. But I'd rung the bell at my first attempt. And here he was, Charlie Fraser, in my room, armpits reeking, as good as declaring his culpability.

    He hadn't admitted it yet, but turning up at my door was as good as a confession. I was angry enough to want to have a pop at him, but I also wanted to find out what in hell he was up to. I made a feeble effort at being indirect. "I don't know what it is you've done up there, but you should have seen the porter's dog."

    He nodded. "No, that figures."

    "Why does it figure."

    "He's not too keen on dogs. In fact he hates dogs."

    "Who does?

    He shook his head. He obviously wasn't going to tell me.

    "Who doesn't like dogs?"

    Charlie Fraser looked down at the floor, then lifted up his head and stuck his chin out at me. He had this infuriating smirk on his face. It was superiority, confidence in some knowledge that I didn't have. Then he shook his head again, as if to say, no, there are some things you're not smart enough to grasp.

    I'm not a violent person. I'd had one big fight in my life and that was when I was six years old. But that provocative smirk released in my brain a photo-flash of white heat and I stepped forward and hit him twice, once on his nose and once on his chin. He fell back hard against the door, but didn't go down.

    His hand went to his nose, which was already streaming with blood. Nipping it between finger and