Tom saw far more than he had during the fray itself. He could see the way the battle ebbed and flowed; he could watch the police and army tactics at work, alternating weapons of demon destruction. It made for an extraordinary epic conflict, complete with a final sword fight between damned Mongols and hundreds of hard-to-kill and undeniably sexy damnèd warriors.
Tom freezeframed on one of the most poignant of the images of battle, when some of the enemy forces had been set on fire by holy flame-throwers and a giant fireball of death was created: a bright maelstrom of beauty and pain.
He realised someone was standing behind him. He turned and saw a grey-bearded warlock. Barrel-chested. Tall. His beard long and bushy and a perfect grey, with no stippling. He had breath that smelled of black incense, of the direst kind. His eyes were blood-shot.
‘I gather we triumphed,’ Tom said.
The Grey-Beard smiled. ‘We were fortunate, on this occasion,’ he replied.
He had a voice, or so it seemed to Tom, as old as ancient hills. As calm as a perfect blue lake on a summer’s day, when there is barely a breeze and the birds in the high sky are held motionless upon warm updrafts.
Tom felt a strange sense of comfort. The Grey-Beard exuded such authority, such sureness; Tom was overwhelmed with a sense that all was well with the world. Yet even so, he couldn’t stop himself blurting out: ‘So what went wrong?’
The Grey-Beard’s smile barely faltered. ‘What dost thou mean?’ he said. And now his tones were as resonant as a cathedral bell.
Tom forced himself to ignore the mellifluous beauty of the warlock’s voice. ‘Your spells. They’re supposed to make it impossible for any further Hell Breaches to occur. That was the deal. So what went wrong?’
‘No spell is perfect. There is always – risk. But the Breach is sealed now, thou art safe.’
‘Yes, but,’ said Tom, his mind whirring. ‘Why did this happen? And why did it happen here? This is a murder scene –’
‘There you have your answer. There was evil at this house, and the barrier between the dimensions is thinner at places of great evil. It’s a well known fact.’ The Grey-Beard sighed, with evident irritation. ‘Look son, dial it down.’
‘Yes but – but – but – I mean, really! You can’t be serious about this!’
Tom realised his voice had become high-pitched, and aggressive. He’d often spoken to his teachers in such a strident way at school; it had helped to make him a pariah.
The Grey-Beard continued to look stern. As stern as God counting the apples and finding one to be absent. Tom felt overwhelmed with reproval; his guilt was an ocean in which he was drowning.
Yet he felt there was a peculiar disconnect going on here, between the awe-struck way he felt, and what was actually happening: which was not very much really. It occurred to him that the Grey-Beard was using magical glamour to control his mind, and to shape his emotions. The bastard was making him feel humble.
Infuriated, Tom struggled to fight against the roaring tide of his own self-abasement.
‘Go in peace, laddie,’ said the Grey-Beard. ‘And next time, less of the gob, okay?’ He smiled, beneficently, and moved away.
Tom breathed a sigh of relief. He found himself steeped in humility. Grateful as a pilgrim for this Grey-Beard’s benison.
But a moment later his true arrogant self returned; like a lecher rediscovering lust. He could feel the glamour ebb off him as the Grey-Beard walked away, dispensing succour to victims, blessing the bodies of the dead.
This is such bullshit, he thought, angrily.
So he called the bastard back.
‘Wait!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not bloody finished with you yet!’
Huge shoulders tensed. The Grey-Beard turned. And he walked slowly back towards Tom.
‘How many died?’ Tom asked.
The Grey-Beard pondered the question.
‘Many,’ said the Grey-Beard, ‘and I salute their bravery.’
Tom checked his e-berry, which carried the casualty and fatality lists. ‘Twenty-one,’ said Tom eventually.
‘I salute those twenty-one,’ said the Grey-Beard.
‘That’s not enough.’
‘You would have liked more deaths?’
Tom declined to heed the warning signs: the icy tone, the rage in the Grey-Beard’s eyes.
Tom had a rapt audience by now. The other injured cops and soldiers on their makeshift camp beds were silent, watching this epic confrontation, and three of the paramedics including metal-framed-glasses were watching too.
‘Too easy,’ said Tom.
The Grey-Beard frowned. ‘You’re delirious.’
‘I fought for hours and wasn’t hurt once. I fainted, I wasn’t actually injured. That’s because my Kevlar, my visor – they’re too strong, unbreakable by demon claws or teeth. My sword cut through the demons like paper. Why so easy? This wasn’t battle, it was slaughter.’
Tom hadn’t realised he’d thought all this until he spoke. It was the way his mind worked: fast, and intemperately.
Tom felt a deep unease. For he knew that he and every other human being in London feared the hell spawn with a deep visceral dread. They were, literally, the monsters out of our nightmares. And yet, when it came down to it, wasn’t it humans and warlocks who were most to be feared? After all, it was human military technology and warlock magic working in tandem that had created the most deadly weapons of mass destruction the world had ever seen. As the Chinese had discovered - the hard way.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ Tom said, accusingly. ‘It wasn’t a battle, it was a turkey shoot. We should have called upon them to surrender! We should have given them a chance to - to - we should have given them a chance.’
The Grey-Beard didn’t reply to Tom’s goading. He just gave him a ‘fuck off’ glare. Well practised and searing.
And suddenly, the Grey-Beard was gone. Had he walked off, without Tom noticing? Or turned invisible?
It dawned on Tom he’d been tactless to the point of insanity. He grinned shame-facedly, glancing around.
‘Hi guys,’ he said, to the ranks of the wounded.
All eyes were on him as he slowly walked out of the tent.
Tom made his way across the schoolyard and walked back to Ildminster Square. The clean up squads were hard at work now, bagging demon corpses and body fragments for disposal. The Chinooks had gone. The smell of death overwhelmed even the reek of brimstone.
Tom watched as blue-uniformed firemen stepped forward and started hosing down the surviving damned warriors. The water was icy; the blood formed in lakes on the pavement, and poured down the gutters. Tom knew that tonight the sewers would run red.
Tom continued to watch, and spotted Fillide as she emerged stark naked from a high-pressure hosing. Her skin was bright pink, her body riven with scars and bloody wounds, her severed arm regrown and muscular. He continued to watch as she towelled herself down. She noticed that Tom staring at her, and stared back at him, unabashed. Tom tried to look away but he couldn’t.
He walked across to Fillide. By the time he reached her, she was putting on her clothes, having discarded her bloody vest. Her hair was lustrous, washed in demon blood. Her eyes glittered.
‘You survived,’ she said.
‘I survived.’
‘I’m glad.’
Something yanked inside Tom; for a second he thought he’d been shot. And then it occurred to him it was an emotion.
He was, he realised with dismay, falling in love with this ignorant dead whore from Hell.
‘We should get back to the station,’ she advised him.
‘Yes.’
‘They’ve had their own troubles.’
‘Yes. So I gather.’
‘They’ll need your help.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are you staring at me like that?’
‘I’m sorry. It’s just -’
‘Well stop it. We have work to do.’
Abruptly, he turned and walked away.
Oh Tom! he scolded himself, as he strode away briskly. You’re better than this. You’re a man of reason. You are defined by your intellect. You are not the kind of man who surrenders to base lust. And besides, she’s unworthy of you. She’s an evil bitch, and that’s official, you know the stories they tell about her. You can’t risk your career for someone like her. You just can’t.
Tom! You should be ashamed of yourself!
But he was not.
Fillide watched Tom walk off, his body stiff with desire.
A thought glimmered in her mind - then wavered - then vanished. Like mist, half-glimpsed, on a sunny day.
She continued to look at his receding form. Beetling away from her, with his skinny body, and his badly fitting shirt. Racing off somewhere, not for any reason, just to be away from her, as if she were scum, to be shunned, to be - no - no - he wanted her, she was sure of it.
She thought her dangerous thought again. And then she thought it harder. So hard it hurt.
Slowly the thought began to coalesce. Like a dune in a sandstorm. Like a drip of water in a crashing wave. Like - like - like what? Like nothing else, not really. But there it was. The hints of a plan were forming form. Inchoate shadows in the swirling chaos of her mind. Could it be - would it - might it - could she - what was - Little Tom Derry! Could he really be the one?
Not that she desired the little bastard. Far from it. Tom was but a child. A pup. Skinny as a starving hen. Acned, for fuck’s sake! With blackheads, no less. And shy. And his voice - so shrill! She liked men who were bold and arrogant, with bodies like gods, and bedroom eyes, and velvet voices. She could never love a man like Tom. And yet - and yet - and yet!
Fillide smiled.
HELL ON EARTH
Volume 2: Death of a Demon
From Web Words, the internet dictionary:
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum or Hierarchy of Demons first appears as an Appendix in Johann Weyer's De praestigiis daemonum (1577). The title of the book translates roughly as ‘false monarchy of demons’.
This is a grimoire similar the Arts Goetia, the first book of The Lesser Key of Solomon, and contains a list of demons, and the appropriate hours and rituals to conjure them.
In 2015 an updated edition of the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum was published by the City of London Press, featuring photographs and accurate biographies and other details including Twitter handles of many of the creatures named.
Breach
When capitalised:
n. The creation of a gap between parallel dimensions, as occurred four times in London in June 2014.
It is postulated that minor Breaches may have occurred throughout history, thus explaining the existence of demons, djinns, faeries and ghosts.
The Four Breaches of London are, in chronological order:
1) The Walworth Breach, which began in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum.
2) The Breach of Wormwood, which began in Block A of Wormwood Scrubs prison, and featured land demons only.
3) The Breach of Walthamstow, which began in Walthamstow Marshes, which featured aerial demons, land demons and sea monsters.
4) The Peckham Breach, the largest of the breaches, which featured many legions of the damned as well as bestial and humaniform demons.
According to prevalent urban myth, a Fifth Breach occurred on the 8th of June 2014 somewhere outside London. It’s variously speculated this occurred in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Leeds or York. Scientists and demonologists have failed to find supporting evidence for this theory, which simultaneously occurred to many individuals in the UK in a dream on the night after the Irruption happened in London.
Breachology: The phenomenological study of breach events: an open source project which has the aim of listing every single strange event associated with the Four Breaches. As well as the manifestation of hell entities, the most common Breach effects/side-effects are:
Electrical discharges from human bodies, esp. fingers and genitals and nostrils.
Cataract-like films over the eyes (temporary effect).
Blindness and muteness (long term effects).
The howling of animals and screeching of birds.
The contortion of clouds into meaningful patterns, e.g. faces and words.
The trembling of the ground.
Agonising pain in the colons and stomachs of those in the Breach vicinity. (Temporary effect.)
High-flow priapism, affecting both males and females in the Breach vicinity. (Temporary effect.)
Blood shot eyes and foaming mouths affecting victims who may be far distant from the Breach vicinity (twelve cases in the North of England are listed, nine cases in Scotland, three in Northern Ireland, forty-two in Ireland, as well as one case in Canada, and three in the USA).
Death without medical cause, in which a silently screaming rictus of fear can be observed on the corpses’ faces. (Seven hundred and forty two cases are inventoried, all in Outer London, all within 48 hours of the last Breach).
Spirit Wife and Spirit Husband
African terms for succubus and incubus respectively. These are demons who visit humans in their dreams and sexually ravish them. Such beings are also sometimes called ‘night husbands’ and ‘night wives’.
False faces are commonly used by such demonic dream interlopers; the spirit may take the face of the victim’s father, or mother, or pastor, or beloved best friend.
It is now widely believed by demonologists that most human lore about the hell dimension and the taxonomy and rank of demons has been transmitted to dreamers in the period directly after such violations, when the spirit may linger for a chat.
Magic City
This is a CGI replication of the images of the hidden patterns of power of Demon City, which can be rendered visible with ultraviolet goggles from a viewing point on the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, as proved by Dr Barnaby Hopkinson in his book Magic City. Hopkinson, formerly a reservist SAS officer who served in Iraq, discovered this phenomenon during active service when he spotted djinn trails floating in air in the mountains of Northern Iraq.
These sigils are perfect spheres which do not touch and some claim they are the secret source of the warlocks’ power.
T-Shirt sales featuring this image are in excess of twenty billion worldwide.
CGI Representation of the Magic Spheres of the City of London
PREVIOUSLY....
Nine years ago the sky turned black when millions of flying monsters from the Hell Dimension blocked the sun. That was the day when Hell came to Earth.
Now it’s 2023. Warlocks led by CHIEF WARLOCK BRANNIGAN keep the peace. And London is a nation state in which power is shared between human beings and creatures from the Hell Dimension. The former City of London is now DEMON CITY, ruled by the Lord Mayor MAMMON. The London Army is a freelance force that fights and wins wars all around the world. Demons who are granted citizenship can live and work anywhere in London, side by side with humans, together with thousands of formerly damned humans who have risen from the dead and emigrated to London.
HELL ON EARTH is a detective thriller about Murder Squad Number Five, led by Detective Superintendent DOUGIE RANDALL and his ‘bagman’ Detective Inspector GINA HENDERSON.
In Volume 1 (HELL BREACH) The Squad were on the trail of a serial killer known as the Embalmer. But Dougie discovered that the killings were all connected to numerous other serial killer murders in the capitals over the last five or six years. There is a prolific serial killer at large who is using different murderous techniques to conceal the connections between the victims: for each person who is murdered, Dougie realises, is the person who was most beloved by the previous victim. It is a Love Chain of Murder in other words; weaving a web from the first ever victim to the most recent.
A student called SARAH PENHALL is killed by the Embalmer and Dougie takes her twin sister JULIA PENHALL into protective custody - realising that she is the one most beloved by Sarah, and hence destined to be the next
victim. Dougie visits Julia often and they strike up a rapport, chatting about movies and life. It becomes an important friendship for Dougie - who is a widower with two young children, whose wife was murdered during the Hell Breaches of nine years ago by an imp-demon from Hell.
Meanwhile, a young uniformed constable in Peckham, PC TOM DERRY, stumbles on evidence that someone has hacked the Metropolitan Police databases and so has access to all the addresses and residents of the Met’s safe houses. Tom has been closely following Dougie’s serial murder case and guesses there is a connection; and he warns Dougie that the safe house holding Julia may not be safe.
But it’s too late. Julia is abducted by the malign serial killer, a fat bald man called GOGARTY. Julia is imprisoned by Gogarty in his house, as her sister was before her - not by chains but by enchantment. For Gogarty has magical powers of terrifying power.
Julia, an MA Screenwriting student with exceptional strength of character, manages to escape from Gogarty. And when she is fatally injured she leaves clues carved into her body to tell Dougie how to find her killer. As a result, Gogarty is arrested. And thanks to Dougie’s brilliant interrogation technique, Gogarty makes a full confession.
PC Tom Derry is promoted to DC and seconded to Dougie’s squad in recognition of his work. He is a precocious over-achiever, and is immensely annoying; but he is one of the few people who can hold their own with the formidable Dougie Randall. He becomes part of the team which searches Gogarty’s East End home for further evidence. Bodies are found in the garden, but they prove to be historic, dating back to Victorian times. Tom deduces a connection with the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, though it’s not clear why or how Gogarty would choose to live in Jack’s old home.
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