The Infernals (23 page)

Strangely, Wormwood knew it too, for as his master and Samuel silently considered the fact that the best-case scenario would see them divided again by time and space and various dimensions, he coughed softly and said:

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ll be glad to see the backs of those dwarfs. They have the potential to be quite, um, troublesome.”

Samuel and Nurd understood what Wormwood was trying to do, and were grateful to him.

“I don’t think it’s potential, Wormwood,” said Nurd. “They are
actively
troublesome. They haven’t been potential trouble since before they were born.”

At that moment the dwarfs were happily sharing Shan and Gath’s new variation on Brew 19, helped by some frozen fruit salvaged from Dan’s van. Dan, who was resigned to the fact that his ice-cream business was unlikely to recover in the current circumstances owing to the consumption of all his ice cream and most of his chocolate, had joined in the tasting, and was now a little tipsy. Even Constable Peel had consented to a “small one,” with Sergeant Rowan’s permission, and the sergeant had found some unexpected common ground with Jolly, who had explained
to him that the dwarfs’ criminal behavior was all society’s fault. Sergeant Rowan also believed this was true, mainly because society hadn’t found a way to lock them up and throw away the key.

Angry, meanwhile, was demonstrating to Constable Peel the intricacies of pickpocketing, although this was less out of a desire to share hidden knowledge with the policeman than because Constable Peel had caught Angry trying to steal his handcuffs.

“I can’t help it,” Angry was explaining in what might almost have been a sincere manner. “I was just born this way. My mum says she brought me home from the hospital and found a stethoscope and two thermometers in my diaper. I can find a way to steal anything, me. It’s a gift. Sort of.”

“I stole something once,” said Constable Peel suddenly.

Angry, along with Dozy and Mumbles, who had been listening to the conversation, looked taken aback.

“Really?” said Dozy.

Constable Peel nodded slowly. His cheeks burned with shame, and a little Brew 19 that had splashed on his skin had begun to irritate it.

“I was four,” he said. “I was sitting next to Briony Andrews in kindergarten. We always got two cookies at break, and I’d finished mine, but she had one left. So—”

Constable Peel covered his eyes with one hand and choked back a sob. Angry patted him on the back and tried not to laugh.

“Let it out,” he said. “Confession is good for the soul.”

Somehow, Constable Peel found the strength to go on.

“So—”

“I can see where this is going,” said Dozy.

“Ungbit,” said Mumbles.

“Absolutely,” said Dozy. “Briony Andrews is about to be one hundred percent down in the cookie department.”

“So—”

“Very tense, this,” said Angry.

“I stole her cookie!” concluded Constable Peel.

“No!” said Dozy, almost managing to sound surprised.

“Go on with you,” said Angry, not managing to sound surprised at all.

“Hardened criminal, you were,” said Jolly, joining in the fun. “Stealing a little girl’s cookie? That’s low, that is.”

“Devious,” said Dozy.

“Underhanded,” said Angry.

“Sneaky,” said Jolly.

“I know, I know,” said Constable Peel. “And it gets worse: I pretended she’d lost it. I even helped to organize the search party.”

“Oh, the hypocrisy!” said Angry, who actually thought that this did demonstrate a certain criminal cunning on the part of the juvenile Peel. It was almost admirable. He began to wonder if he might not have misjudged the policeman.

Constable Peel uncovered his face, revealing a fanatical gleam in his eye. “But when I went home that day, I vowed that never again would I engage in illegal activities, cookie-based or otherwise. From that day on I was a policeman in spirit, and the law was my mistress. I was Bob Peel, child lawman, and school-yard wrongdoers trembled at my approach.”

There was silence as the dwarfs considered this before Jolly said somberly:

“You must have been an absolute pain in the bum.”

Constable Peel stared at him. His chin trembled. His fists clenched. For a second there was murder in the air.

“You know, I absolutely was,” said Constable Peel, and their laughter was so loud that dust from the cave roof fell in their beer, improving it slightly.

Back at the cave mouth, Wormwood nibbled on a jelly bean as he, Nurd, and Samuel, joined by Sergeant Rowan, assessed their situation.

“The car has taken a beating,” said Wormwood. “And the ice-cream van isn’t going to last much longer. We’re also nearly out of fuel, and it will take time to synthesize some more.”

“Is there any good news?” asked Nurd.

“We still have jelly beans.”

“Will they power our car?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s not really very good news, then, is it?”

“No,” said Wormwood. “Not really. Oh look, the rain’s easing off.” He frowned. “That’s not good news either, is it?”

Nurd rubbed his eyes wearily. “No, it’s not.”

Soon the skies would once again be filled with eager, hostile eyes. Their enemies knew that they were in the area, and when the rain stopped they would begin to close in on them. They had no weapons, and little hope. There were days that just seemed to get harder and harder as they went on. Finding
Samuel should have been a bright spot; after all, Nurd had spent so long wishing that he and his friend could be together again. Now that Samuel was here, Nurd just hoped to see him gone. Be careful what you wish for, he supposed: he hadn’t wanted Samuel to be dragged to Hell just so that they could have another conversation. The dwarfs and Constable Peel appeared by his side, and together the little group gazed out as the rainfall grew gentler, and then ceased entirely.

“This is our chance,” Nurd told them all. “It will stay dark and quiet for a while now that the rain has stopped. It’s the way of things here. There’ll be no lightning, and we can make some progress without being seen.”

“And the plan is that we find this woman, or demon, or whatever she is, and make her send us home?” said Angry.

“Or you find her, she tears you apart, and you don’t have to worry about getting home anymore,” said Nurd. “It depends, really.”

“On what?”

“On how fast you can run once she spots you.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan,” said Jolly. “And we’ve only got little legs. We’re not really built for speed.”

“That’s unfortunate,” said Nurd. “Speed always helps on these occasions.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re much of a runner either,” said Angry. “Big boots, bit of a belly. You’re going to have trouble outrunning this Mrs. Abernathy too, if she’s chasing us.”

“But I don’t have to outrun her,” said Nurd reasonably. “I just have to outrun you…”

P
REPARATIONS BEGAN FOR THEIR
departure while Samuel watched the clouds swirl. They moved less violently than before, as though worn out by their earlier efforts, the faces less visible now. There was a faint yellow glow to the sky, and although the landscape before him was not beautiful, it was at a kind of peace. The rocky hillside descended to more muddy bogs, across which stretched a stone causeway. As before, a stinking, heavy mist hung over the bogs, and Samuel felt sure that it would hide them from any watchful eyes above as they drove.

He thought about his mother. She would be worried about him. He had lost all track of time since he had arrived in this place, but at least a day and a night had gone by, and perhaps more. Then again, time was different here. He wasn’t even sure that there was time, not really. He supposed that, if eternity stretched before you, then minutes and hours and days would cease to have any meaning. But they had meaning for him:
they represented moments spent separated from those whom he loved: from his mother, his friends, even his dad. Nurd was here, though, which was something.

Beside him, Boswell gave a little yip and got to his feet. He sniffed the air. His ears twitched, and he looked troubled.

“What is it, Boswell?” asked Samuel as a shadow fell upon him, and the Watcher clasped a hand over Samuel’s mouth so that he could not cry out, and pulled him into the air with a great flapping of his wings. By the time Nurd and the others grasped what was happening, Samuel was already disappearing into low clouds, clasped tightly in the Watcher’s arms. Boswell ran down the hillside after them, barking and leaping up on his stubby back legs as though he might yet haul the massive red creature down.

But Samuel was gone, and it was left to Nurd to run to the little dog and hold him lest he get lost, or eaten, Boswell struggling all the time, desperate to follow Samuel, desperate to save him.

A craggy peak rose in the distance. Nurd thought that he saw a figure there, perched on the back of a basilisk. It was looking back at him, and he heard Mrs. Abernathy’s voice as clearly as if she were standing next to him:

“I will come for you, Nurd. I have not forgotten your meddling. For now, it is enough punishment for you to know that I have your friend, and I will sacrifice him to my master. And then it will be your turn.”

But Nurd did not care about her threats, or about himself. He cared only for Samuel, and how he might be rescued.

• • •

The Watcher flew high. It held Samuel, and Samuel held it, for Samuel feared falling more than he feared the creature holding him. Its skin smelled of sulfur and ash, and was pitted with the scars of deep, long-healed wounds. Samuel felt the creature’s consciousness probing at his own, trying to learn about him, exploring his strengths and his weaknesses. But as it tested him, so too it exposed something of itself, and Samuel was shocked by the strangeness of it, and he understood that even by the standards of Hell itself, this was a peculiar, solitary being, one entirely unlike him but also unlike any other entity in that place.

No, not quite. It was allied to another, to—

For an instant Samuel glimpsed the Great Malevolence, and had his first real inkling of the depths of the First Demon’s evil, and wretchedness, and madness. It was so awful that Samuel’s mind immediately put up a series of blockades to protect his sanity, which had the effect of closing out the Watcher. The rhythm of the creature’s flight was momentarily interrupted, as though it were shocked at the strength of the boy’s will. It gripped him tighter as a consequence, clasping him against its shoulder so that Samuel was looking back in the direction that they had come, back toward the hills still visible through wisps of cloud, and toward Boswell and Nurd, who were lost from sight.

A pale, emaciated figure broke through the clouds from above, its ribs clearly visible beneath its skin, its belly sunken. Its head was bald, its ears were long and pointed, and it had too many teeth for its mouth, so that they jutted forth from between
its lips, snaggled and broken. It paused in midair, seemingly surprised to have come across them, then altered its position and began its pursuit. It was a wraith, a batlike demon little taller than Samuel himself. Its wings were attached to its arms, ending in sharp, hooked claws, and it had talons for feet. These talons it now stuck out, poised to strike like a falcon descending on its prey.

Samuel beat on the Watcher’s back, and managed to cry out a warning. Instinctively the Watcher turned to its right, and the smaller creature’s talons missed them by inches, one of its wings slapping against Samuel’s face as it flew by. The Watcher shifted Samuel so that he was held only beneath its left arm, and Samuel felt sure that he would fall. He dug his nails into the Watcher’s hard skin, and wrapped his legs tightly around its waist.

The wraith came at them again, this time from below, screaming over and over, summoning others like it to the chase. The Watcher struck out at it with a flick of its right arm, and its nails tore a hole in the attacker’s belly. No blood came, but the wraith’s wings stopped flapping and it spiraled through the clouds to the ground far below like a fighter plane crippled by gunfire, crying in agony as it fell.

Two more appeared, drawn by the shrieks of their brother. They dived together. One aimed blows at the Watcher’s head, distracting it, while the second tried to pull Samuel from his grasp, but the Watcher held on tightly. His free hand grabbed the wraith that was scratching at his eyes and broke its neck before discarding it. The second it almost decapitated with a swipe
of its hand, leaving the head hanging from a fold of skin, and with that the attack was over, and they were alone in the skies once more. Samuel closed his eyes as they flew on, so that neither he nor the Watcher saw a final wraith that shadowed them for a time from above before it slipped away to report to Duke Abigor all that it had seen.

M
RS
. A
BERNATHY’S BASILISK POUNDED
across the warm stones, lost in the clouds of steam that had arisen in the aftermath of the recent showers. There was an acrid smell in the air, the stink of flesh, and wood, and vegetation corroded and burned by the falling acid, yet already what passed for life in that place was recovering. Clumps of brown seared weeds became slightly less brown; stunted bushes, blackened and smoking, reassumed their usual dull hue; and assorted small demons who had not been quick enough to escape the downpour began growing back arms, legs, toes, and heads. Some of them even grew an extra limb or two while they were about it, just in case an additional appendage proved useful in the future. From holes in the ground and through gaps in the bushes, they watched Mrs. Abernathy pass, and they saw that her face was alive with triumph, and her eyes shone a deep,
cold blue. Not all of them knew who she was, for there were parts of Hell where the Great Malevolence was little more than a rumored presence hidden deep in his mountain fastness, and his dukes and generals and legions could have been figures from old fables for all the impact they had on the existence of these primitive entities. Yet they sensed that this curious figure was immensely powerful, and should probably be avoided if at all possible.