Hell on Earth

by Philip Palmer

  He was staring at the central holo of the semi-detached house where Sheila Whittaker lived. It was a big five-storied detached late Victorian house with mock turrets, and was in bad decorative order, with loose roof tiles visible.

  In a neat mid-air row below the holo of the house were photos of the foster children in her care: Jacob, Veda, Alazu, Mithrai, the talking baby Troy, and the baboon-like creature, Thea. Monsters all, apart from the unbaptised baby. And Dougie had always found those little buggers really eerie.

  There were also twin holos of the owner-occupants of the house, Sheila Whittaker and her husband Alfredo Whittaker. She was a professional foster mother, he was a sculptor and artist who had a staggering 323 page entry about his life and works on Wikipedia; supposedly written by a fan but Andy reckoned that Alfredo had written it himself.

  Mason-detectives had devil-trapped the perimeter in the early hours, wearing night vision goggles as they daubed sigils in chalk on the pavement at the front of the house, and in the lane behind the back garden, and on the side walls of the house.

  Then the Grey-Beards, four of them, had sat in Observation Post 1 in the bedroom of a house opposite Sheila’s. And they had used the devil traps as the geographical element in a binding spell that stretched from forty feet below the foundations of the Whittaker house to half a mile in the air. The house and gardens were entirely enclosed in the spell, but the neighbours’ houses were excluded, with all the centimetre precision of a surveyor’s map that determines whose responsibility it is to maintain the garden fence.

  There was a satellite lock on the house giving overhead visuals. Infra red photos taken by cameras at OP1 and OP2 showed the location of the human inhabitants of the house. This data was supplemented by audio-information from microphones darted on to the windows, of such acuity that heartbeats could be heard. As a result they were now confident that Sheila was in bed, asleep. She was a talker-in-her-sleep so that ID was secure. There was another adult human on the fourth floor: Gogarty, it was surmised, or if they were out of luck, Fred.

  There was one anomaly: a faint heart beat on the same floor as the postulated Gogarty, which was very slow, about one beat a minute. According to Lisa’s contact at St Mary’s Hospital, who was a Professor in circulatory medicine, such a slow heartbeat could only be achieved by a hibernating animal or a crocodile at very low temperatures. The notion that the Whittakers were keeping a live crocodile in a freezer in the fourth/fifth floor studio seemed too preposterous for words. But in all conscience, Dougie couldn’t exclude it.

  Furthermore, shadow-casting showed the six demonic or damned (i.e. Troy) children were asleep in their bedrooms (Troy, Jacob, Veda, Thea) or in the annexe in the garden (Mithrai, Alazu). The shadow-casting also revealed the vast shape of a demonic presence lurking in the studio with the human and the hibernator. The demon Naberius, it was confidently surmised.

  The team had double and tripled checked with the Demon City Police and the Mammon-funded fostering agency, so there was almost a zero chance that this larger demon was another foster child, or a demon child from a different foster home having a sleepover with his pals. Though as always, Dougie knew the truth would only emerge once they’d kicked the doors in and thoroughly spun the drum.

  Dougie did know, after his squad’s intensive investigations which had involved waking up a great number of people in the middle of the night, that:

  1) Sheila’s children had not left the house for six weeks, which was unheard of for this family.

  2) Sheila’s food bill had increased ten fold over the same six week period; and her purchases included meat items such as whole cows, whole boars and luxury items such as vintage wine. Sheila had spread the purchases between multiple stores, none of them in the SE region, and she had used cash.

  3) Sheila, when captured on CCTV in a variety of shops and abattoirs in North and West London, was clearly under great strain. She had a nervous twitch and a tendency to jump whenever loud noises were heard.

  4) Sheila’s husband Fred had not left the house during this six week period. He no longer attended his life model classes, although those were known to be his only source of income. He didn’t reply to phone calls. He didn’t answer his emails. An artist friend had called to see him and been given the brush off by a cold and dismissive Sheila; which, the artist claimed, was entirely out of character. ‘Sheila’s a sweetheart, she always has a welcome for an improvident old rascal like me,’ the artist had told the outside enquiry team.

  5) Facebook posts and Tweets from the inhabitants of the house had ceased completely soon after Gogarty’s escape from Whitechapel nick. And social media posts from neighbours of Sheila had commented on ‘strange noises’ and a ‘funny’ vibe emanating from her house. This was the initial clue garnered by Five Squad that had led them to suspect that Gogarty was actually living with Sheila; and that she was his human helper.

  On the basis of these circumstantial clues, Dougie had chosen to bet the farm on this raid. If Naberius and Gogarty were not inside, he would look like an idiot.

  It was 5am. Through the rear window of the battlebus Dougie could see dawn daubing the night sky. Dougie picked up the phone and punched in the number.

  He waited as it rang, and rang. This often took a while. All around the environs of the house, police marksmen hunkered down behind their hardened plastic testudos. Twelve streets away the Met’s two Harrier jets hovered silently, waiting for their call. The phone rang and rang. Eventually a bleary voice answered.

  ‘Who the hell is this?’ said Sheila Whittaker.

  ‘I am a police officer,’ said Dougie carefully into the telephone. ‘Your house is surrounded by police officers, Sheila. Look out of the window.’

  There was a long pause. Dougie heard a sigh of annoyance.

  ‘Bloody kids,’ said Sheila and hung up.

  ‘Authorise a mortar blast,’ said Dougie to Gina. Gina punched the codes.

  Armed police in the lane behind the garden wall levered the mortar into position. Dawn birds sang upon the trees in the gardens and on the pavements. An urban fox slunk past arrogantly, unfazed by the army of burly men and strong women in black Kevlar who were lurking like shadows. The necessary calibrations were made. The mortar was armed.

  In theory, Dougie was only authorised to use pre-emptive force if a rogue demonic presence was confirmed. In practice, well, he was shooting from the hip here.

  Dougie gave the word and a black-Kevlared copper triggered the mortar. There was barely any recoil. The thin cylinder shot out of the barrel faster than the eye could see and soared over the back garden above the trampoline and crashed through the kitchen window and exploded, with a dull ‘boom’. The house shook.

  Dougie was watching it all on his holos. But Gina stepped out of the battle bus and inspected the house with eyeballs from the front aspect.

  No sign of the chaos within. No indication that the house had been shaken to the foundations. A cyclist rode past and veered then braked when he saw the police cordon. He stared at the armed officers crouched behind bullet-proof shields, turning the entire street into a battle zone; but quickly recovered and turned around and rode off.

  Gina looked away from the scene then looked back swiftly. She was rewarded with a glimpse of the shimmer around the house that marked the binding spell. Invisible except to peripheral vision or a hurried glance. No demon could pass beyond its bounds - only humans, and bullets, and missiles.

  Inside the battle bus, Dougie dialled again. He waited, again. Sheila answered, again.

  ‘Sheila, this is not a hoax. I am a police officer. That was a warning shot. You are under arrest on suspicion of harbouring a murderer. Your house is under siege. Look out of the window.’

  He waited.

  From the holo image taken by the telescopic lens of the camera at OP1, Dougie could see that Sheila was staring out of the bedroom window. He could see a flicker of curtains. He could see part of her body, and half of her head; he had a glimpse of her brow
n-bunned hair, her anxious eye peeking out.

  On the street, the armed officers stood up, one by one, declaring their presence like gladiators claiming to be Spartacus, brandishing their Heckler and Koch HK416 or AR-15 X45 automatic rifles crossed against their chests. Then one by one, they knelt back down, behind their protective barriers.

  In the battle bus, over the phone and via the miniature bugs, Dougie could hear deep breathing. This was Sheila coming to terms with what was happening.

  ‘He’ll kill us all,’ Sheila said calmly, into the telephone.

  ‘Who, the demon? Is he there? Please confirm that there is a rogue demon on your premises. Please, Sheila, confirm.’

  The team in the bus waited, with hushed breaths; Ronnie and Taff and Seamus and Dougie and Fillide, all waiting for the speaker phone to tell them if they had the right place.

  Gina, outside the bus, also waited for Sheila’s words with agonising tension.

  In the Major Incident Room at Bethnal Green, the remainder of Five Squad were gathered around the console speaker, also waiting to hear what Sheila would say. They’d worked through the night to prep this raid. They were desperate to know whether that work was in vain.

  ‘I – confirm,’ said Sheila. ‘The demon is here. Naberius. Gogarty too. We had no choice.’

  ‘I know you didn’t, Sheila.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done this. You bloody fool. He’ll kill them all and make me watch. Then he’ll kill me. Then he’ll come out and fight.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be that way.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done this.’

  ‘Come out,’ he said patiently. ‘With your hands on your head. Now. Bring the children out. If the demon tries to stop you, tell him we’re willing to deal. We can offer a full amnesty.’

  ‘Oh don’t be so fucking naïve,’ Sheila snapped.

  ‘Now!’ shouted Dougie. ‘Grab them, run, now. It’s your only chance.’

  She hung up.

  Dougie waited.

  Standing outside the bus, watching the Whittaker house in the chill morning air, Gina felt a tingle of anticipation. Bloody war would soon ensue.

  Meanwhile, inside the battle bus: Dougie spoke into the intercom, hooked up to the speakers on the house’s phone system.

  ‘Gogarty it’s me, Dougie Randall. That was your early morning wake up call,’ Dougie said. He waited.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Let me speak to Naberius. We know Naberius is the demon who is controlling you. We can do a deal. There’s a way out of this. Tell the monster that. Tell it we can deal.’

  Nothing happened. Dougie was bullshitting of course; but he had to lay a false trial for the sake of subsequent case reviews.

  Dougie started the countdown.

  He knew there was only the slimmest of chances that the warlock Gogarty would allow the hostages to flee. But he had to give Sheila that slimmest of chances. ‘Fire at will at the upper storey,’ Dougie said. ‘Pin the demon down in the upper floor and attic. Do not fire at the first or ground floors.’

  A second mortar round flew into the air towards the house, this time loaded with dark incense. It crashed into the eaves, and ripped into the studio area where Gogarty and Naberius had been, according to their heartbeats, asleep and roosting respectively.

  As the mortar hit, the heartbeats accelerated; they were both awake and in fight mode. A third shell, a fourth, a fifth, were fired, all targeted at the studio space. The mortar shells crashed through windows or punched holes out of walls. Incense billowed out of the shattered panes, while the interior of the house was consumed by a toxic-for-demons choking fog.

  ‘Hostages are coming out the back way,’ a voice said in Dougie’s earpiece. Dougie ripped the earpiece out and jumped out of the battlebus. The SCO19 commander could run this operation without his help now. He wanted to be on the ground.

  ‘Gina.’

  Dougie ran in an effortless sprint down Jedburgh Street and into the lane behind Sheila’s house, followed by his huffing bagman, Gina.

  The back garden gate of Sheila’s had been locked but was now blown off its hinges leaving a clear pathway. Dougie and Gina darted past soldiers behind testudos and he could see the glint of a sniper rifle from OP2 in the house in Bamborough Lane.

  Dougie stepped into the back garden.

  ‘Back, sir,’ shouted a man in black but Dougie ignored him.

  He saw Sheila Whittaker in the garden with a menagerie of demons. A tall creature made of clay: that was Jacob, the Golem. A monkey-like monster: Thea. A many limbed Asian child with multiple heads: Veda. And, being carried in two of Veda’s arms, a baby damned human: Troy.

  ‘Sheila, come,’ Dougie shouted. But she was running for the outhouse, a breeze-block built extension with stable doors big enough for a giraffe to pass in and out. She pulled the doors back and two monsters emerged – a bull-like beast (Mithrai) and a flying demon with a huge wingspan (Alazu). Dougie was shocked at their size, and their alien beauty.

  ‘Sheila, come!’ Dougie shouted again.

  Sheila ran, and the children followed. Down the garden path. Jacob sprinted; Thea hopped, using her tail to vault herself; Mithrai bounded on all four legs. Veda ran too, holding Baby Troy, her many arms flapping. Dougie stepped away from the gate. And observed the children’s shock as they started to slow down once they entered the spell binding zone. They progressed a yard or so in eerie slo-mo; until finally they were motionless, like flies caught in a spider’s web.

  Sheila however ran out of the garden and was grabbed by two AFOs and thrown to the ground and cuffed.

  ‘Sheila,’ said Dougie calmly. ‘I have a few questions for you.’

  She was pulled to her feet by the firearms officer. ‘My children!’

  ‘Your children will be safe. Tell me about Gogarty.’

  Gina shuffled up close, so that she and Dougie could huddle with Sheila, and speak covertly.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Sheila whispered. She was, Dougie noted, doing a good job of keeping her hysteria at bay.

  ‘Is he possessed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is he –’

  ‘He’s the one. He’s the one in charge. He uses his magic to –’

  ‘Magic.’

  ‘He’s a warlock,’ said Sheila.

  ‘Bingo,’ said Gina, who had been filming this.

  ‘Send that to Roy Hall,’ said Dougie. ‘Do it now.’

  ‘I’m doing it, I’m doing it.’

  ‘Mum!’

  Sheila turned and saw the huge clay form of Jacob still standing inside the garden, hands outstretched, like a mime artist pushing against an imaginary wall. Behind him howled his brothers and sisters, equally trapped by invisible tangibility.

  ‘Come here, Jacob! Veda! Children, come, run!’ Sheila shouted.

  ‘They can’t leave the garden, there’s a binding spell,’ said one of the AFOs.

  ‘I can’t get through,’ said Jacob, helplessly.

  ‘Do you think we don’t know that?’ Dougie tauntingly called out, and Jacob’s face twitched, shocked at the rudeness.

  ‘Help them please,’ whimpered Sheila.

  Dougie marvelled that a human being could feel any kind of affection for such vile creatures.

  The demon children were screaming and shouting with fear. The baby was bawling. The bull, Mithrai, was pawing the ground, trying to charge through the opening but unable to progress its legs. And the eagle-demon, Alazu, flew in circles outside the limits of the spell-binding, then plummeted at it raptor-like – but was hurled back in a scatter of wings.

  ‘Shut up. All of you, you freaks, shut up!’ Dougie yelled.

  Dougie glared with hate at these monsters. He could see Veda, crying from all of her faces. He could see Mithrai, howling and pawing. He could see Alazu, who flew at the invisible spell-barrier again and again, until his wings were bloody. He could see the look of fear on the teenage golem’s face.

  The baby Troy was mute
with shock. And the baboon creature Thea was staring accusingly at Dougie, like a child who wants to cross the road to join her family but has been told she has to live her entire life on the pavement.

  Dougie looked away.

  ‘You have to get them out,’ Sheila begged.

  ‘Not my problem, you’ll need to put a request in to New Scotland Yard,’ Dougie lied smoothly.

  ‘You have to.’ Tears were pouring down Sheila’s cheeks. ‘You have to.’

  Dougie remembered he was being filmed by uniformed observers with helmet cameras. He caved. ‘Call a Grey- Beard.’

  Gina dialled. She and Dougie looked at their e-berry screens and a bearded face appeared.

  The four Grey-Beards were still at OP1, watching the action from a safe distance. Gogarty clearly had them scared.

  ‘Now?’ said the Grey-Beard.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Unbind,’ said the Grey-Beard; and the shimmer at the gate vanished.

  Gina was standing close to Dougie, strangely pale. Sheila stood up and screamed: ‘Run, run, run!’

  They ran. Jacob was first through the gate. He stumbled, and tumbled over, and got up in triumph. Thea hurtled after him, her tail flailing. Mithrai galloped close behind. Alazu jumped high and his wings flapped and he flew over Mithrai. Veda was last, her many arms upraised, the baby Troy still held tight. The demon child was, Dougie noted, extraordinarily beautiful. She had the sheen of hope and joy-to-come that only the very young possess.

  He loathed the sight of her.

  ‘In the name of Ashtoreth, I bind –’ the Grey-Beard began to say on the e-berry screen, and then the house exploded.

  Dougie blinked, blinded by the glare, then peered through half shut eyes to see a red rocket had ripped through the roof of the house and was tearing up into the sky, hurtling for the gap in the binding spell.

  ‘ – thee,’ said the Grey-Beard triumphantly, and the creature’s ascent was halted abruptly. It spun around in mid-air, its great wings beating, and it roared in frustration.