The Watcher sniffed at the air, re-creating the scents it had picked up on the plain. It had felt presences nearby, watching it, but it was not sure if they were related to the black substance on the rock. Its sunken nostrils twitched.
An old smell, almost forgotten. And another with it: sharper, more pungent. They were familiar, those smells. The Watcher rummaged through its memories, back, back, until it came at last to a pair of cowering figures, its mistress towering above them in her old, monstrous form, banishing them forever to the Wasteland.
Very little surprised the Watcher. It had seen so much that it was almost incapable of surprise. But its realization of who had been responsible for the collapse of the portal nearly caused it to topple over in shock.
Nurd.
Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities.
Nurd, who barely justified the term demon to begin with, so inept was he at being evil.
Nurd had betrayed them all.
Meanwhile, Nurd and Wormwood were standing on a rise and watching a small van tootling merrily across the Desert of Bones while playing “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” Nurd and Wormwood knew that the piece of music was called “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” because at least four voices were singing along to it, adding “woof-woof” noises after each mention of the word window, and the words waggle-waggle to the bit about “the one with the waggly tail.”
“What’s a doggie?” asked Wormwood. “And why do they want one?”
“A doggie is a small creature that barks, like Boswell, Samuel Johnson’s dachshund,” said Nurd. “It goes ‘woof-woof.’ This one, though, also appears to have a tail that is waggly, which makes it more desirable, I suppose.”
“They do seem to want it very badly,” said Wormwood.
“It doesn’t appear like a good idea to go shouting about it, though,” said Nurd. “The kind of things with waggly tails that live around here tend to have big waggly bodies too, and waggly heads with sharp, waggly teeth.”
“If it’s from the world of men, then maybe Samuel is in there too.”
Nurd shook his head. “No, I’d sense him if he were so close.” Nurd strained to read the writing on the side of the van. “It says something about ice cream on the side. And candy.”
“Candy?” said Wormwood.
“Candy,” said Nurd.
They looked at each other. Their faces brightened, and both said, simultaneously: “Jelly beans!”
Seconds later, they were in hot pursuit of the ice-cream van.
Constable Peel very much wanted to die. More than that, he wanted to die and take four dwarfs with him, and maybe a driver of an ice-cream van for good measure. He’d been listening to “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” for a good four hours now, and was on the verge of insanity.
“Stop singing,” he said to the dwarfs.
“No,” said Angry.
“Stop singing.”
“No.”
“Stop singing.”
“Say ‘please.’”
“Please.”
“No.”
Constable Peel banged on the glass connecting the back of the van to the front compartment, in which Sergeant Rowan and Dan, Dan the Ice-Cream Man were sitting.
“For the last time,” he pleaded, “there must be some way to turn that music off.”
Dan shrugged. “I’ve told you: it comes on automatically with the engine. I haven’t been able to work out how to make it stop without messing up the wiring.”
“You’re messing up my wiring,” said Constable Peel. “Can’t I at least sit up front with you?”
“There isn’t really enough room,” said Sergeant Rowan, who didn’t like being cramped.
“Then why don’t we swap places for a while, and you can sit back here?”
“With that lot singing? I don’t think so. It’s bad enough up here.”
Jolly made himself another ice-cream cone. He’d already had twelve, but the sometimes bumpy nature of the terrain meant that he had only managed successfully to eat nine, while the remaining three were smeared all over his face and clothes.
“Lovely ice cream, this,” he said, for the thirteenth time.
“Oi, I hope you’re paying for all of those,” said Dan.
“I’m putting them on my tab.”
“You don’t have a tab.”
“Oh, now you tell me. You should have said that before I started eating them all. Bit late now, isn’t it?”
“He was right about the chocolate too,” said Dozy, who had taken to eating the sprinkles by the fistful. “Very high quality.”
Angry and Mumbles began singing about doggies again, at least Angry did. Mumbles could have been singing about dinosaurs and nobody would have been any the wiser. Constable Peel, his patience now at an end, was stretching out his hands to strangle one or both of them when Dan stopped the van, for there was now something to distract them all from the music.
“That’s interesting,” said Dozy. He and the other three dwarfs, each munching happily on Dan’s livelihood, hopped from the van, closely followed by the two policemen and Dan himself.
Stretched before them were thousands and thousands of little workbenches, each occupied by an imp. Between the desks walked other imps carrying buckets of bone dust. They poured the bone dust into a hole at one end of each desk, the seated imps turned a lever, there was the sound of grinding, and then from the other end of the desks emerged clean, intact bones, which the demons with buckets took from them before walking back the way they had come.
“Well, that explains a lot,” said Jolly. “Sort of.”
There was a larger desk some distance to their right. The dwarfs left the policemen and Dan, and made their way over to it. A demon who bore a remarkable resemblance to the recently vaporized A. Bodkin sat at the desk, snoozing. His nameplate read “Mr. D. Bodkin, Demon-in-Charge.”
“’Scuse me,” said Jolly, tapping D. Bodkin’s boot.
D. Bodkin woke slowly, and stared at Jolly.
“Yes, what is it?”
“Do you know where all of this dust comes from?”
“What dust?”
“The dust that makes the bones.”
D. Bodkin looked at Jolly as though Jolly had just asked him why the sky was gray and black with bursts of purple and red flame currently flashing through it. That was just the way things were.
“Is there something wrong with you?” asked D. Bodkin. “Look around: there’s only dust. Hardly going to run out, are we?”
The dwarfs started giggling. D. Bodkin, suspecting that he was the butt of a joke he didn’t understand, and who didn’t care much for humor at the best of times, glowered at them.
“See over that way,” said Angry, “where all those little demons with buckets are coming from?”
“Yes,” said D. Bodkin.
“You should take a walk over there. There’s a bloke who’d love to meet you. Looks a bit like you. Long-lost relative, you might say.”
“Really?”
“Cross my heart. You and him would have a lot to talk about. You’re both in the same business, in a way.”
“Well, I will, then,” said D. Bodkin. “I feel like giving the old legs a stretch. Haven’t left my desk in, ooooh-”
He glanced at the hourglass on his wrist, which, like Mr. A. Bodkin’s similar model, was designed to funnel sand very efficiently from one glass to another without ever depleting the store in the upper glass, or increasing the store in the lower glass. This watch, though, appeared to have stopped, possibly due to a blockage. D. Bodkin looked perturbed. He tapped the glass with a clawed forefinger.
“Funny, my watch doesn’t seem to be working.” He gave his wrist a little shake, and said, “Ah, that’s better.”
Angry leaned forward and noticed that the sand from the lower glass was now running upward into the upper glass, although, as before, neither glass got any emptier, or any fuller.
“You really have been at this desk
for too long,” said Angry, glancing back at his fellow dwarfs and twisting one finger slowly by his right temple in the universal indication of someone else’s general absence of marbles. “It’ll be good for you to take a break. We’ll keep an eye on this lot until you get back.”
“You won’t steal anything, will you?” asked D. Bodkin. “I’ll get into terrible trouble if anything goes missing. Budgets, you know. I have to account for every paper clip these days.”
Angry was the picture of wounded innocence. “I’m hurt,” he said, blinking away an imaginary tear. He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief upon which to blow his nose, discovered one, looked at it, decided that the only thing more diseases ridden than this handkerchief was an actual disease, and put it back where he’d found it. “I’m so hurt that I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s slander, that is,” said Dozy.
“We’re just trying to brighten up your day,” said Jolly, “and you go and say something nasty like that about us.”
“We’ve been the victims of theft ourselves,” said Angry. “On that subject, you wouldn’t have seen a van anywhere-four wheels, picture of a handsome smiling gentleman somewhat like ourselves on the side-would you?”
“No,” said D. Bodkin.
“What about a police car: four wheels, blue lights?”
“No. I’d like to, though. It sounds very interesting.”
“Hmm,” said Angry. “Fat lot of good that does us.”
He and his other dwarfs folded their arms and looked expectantly at D. Bodkin. Jolly tapped his foot impatiently.
“Well,” said Jolly, “we’re waiting.”
Eventually, D. Bodkin took the hint.
“I’m very sorry for what I said just now,” he said. He looked embarrassed. The horns on his head glowed bright red. He put his hands behind his back and traced little patterns of shame in the sand with his left foot. “I shouldn’t have asked if you were going to steal anything. You can’t be too careful, you know. After all, this is Hell. All sorts of rotten types end up here.”
“Apology accepted,” said Angry. “Off you go, then. Tell the other chap we said hello.”
“Righty-ho,” said D. Bodkin, and began following the line of bone-bearing bucket carriers.
The dwarfs waved him off.
“Nice bloke,” said Jolly.
“Lovely,” said Angry as D. Bodkin disappeared over a dune. “This world needs more demons like him.”
“Suckers, you mean?” said Jolly.
“Absolutely,” said Angry. “Complete and utter suckers.”
Back in the van, Jolly counted their loot.
“That’s fifteen pencils, one pencil sharpener, a stapler, an eraser, a mug that says ‘You Don’t Have to Be Diabolical to Work Here, but It Helps,’” and some stamps,” said Jolly.
“You forgot the desk,” said Dozy.
“And the desk,” confirmed Jolly. He stuck his head out of the side of the van and checked on the desk, which they’d tied to the roof of the van with a length of rope they’d found in Dan’s emergency kit.
“You’re sure he said that you could take them?” said Constable Peel. He was more than a little suspicious, but at least the dwarfs had stopped singing for a while.
“Absolutely. Told us he was quitting. No future in the job. Said we’d be doing him a favor.”
“Well, if you’re sure, although I don’t know why you think you need a desk anyway.”
“Question not the need,” said Angry. “If it isn’t nailed down, we’ll have it. And if it is nailed down, we’ll find a way to un-nail it and have that as well.”
Constable Peel’s brow furrowed. A cloud of dust seemed to be following them. As it drew closer he saw that it was being preceded by a fast-moving rock.
“Look at that,” he said. He pulled back the glass separating the front of the van from the serving section. “Sarge, we’re being chased by a rock.”
“You don’t see a rock rolling uphill very often,” said Angry. “Very unusual, that.”
“It’s gaining on us,” said Dozy.
“Stop the van,” said Sergeant Rowan. Dan did as he was instructed, and they all listened over the music.
“That’s the sound of an engine, Sarge,” said Constable Peel.
“So it is, Constable,” said Sergeant Rowan as the rock pulled up alongside them, its doors opened, and what looked like a ferret with mange jumped out, closely followed by a cloaked demon wearing big boots and an expectant smile on his green face.
“Two bags of jelly beans, please,” said Nurd. “And a cone with chocolate.”
He waved a small gold coin in the air, just as Constable Peel’s head appeared through the service hatch.
“Well, well, well,” said Constable Peel. “Would you look at who it is?”
Nurd’s jaw dropped. Wormwood helpfully picked it up and reattached it.
“Oh, nuts,” said Nurd.
“No,” said Constable Peel, “but we do have sprinkles…”
XIX
In Which We Encounter Some of the Other Unfortunate Residents of Hell
SAMUEL AND BOSWELL, FRIGHTENED and tired, traversed the landscape of Hell. There were great causeways of stone that crossed chasms filled with fire, and dark lakes in whose depths swam nightmarish forms, their fins and tails occasionally breaking the surface as they hunted and were hunted. They saw demons large and small, sometimes in the distance, sometimes up close, but even those upon whose path they stumbled paid them little or no attention. They seemed to assume that if Samuel and Boswell were there, then they were meant to be, and were therefore some other demon’s concern, not theirs.
But for the most part there wasn’t a great deal to see, for Hell looked largely unfinished to Samuel and Boswell. True, the skies above their heads continued to rage, and Samuel sometimes felt that the clouds were looking down and mocking him before resuming their never-ending conflict of noise and light, but vast stretches of Hell’s landscape had little or nothing to offer at all. 30 There was just dirt beneath their feet, or cracked stone, or low mounds of short black grass unenlivened by even a single weed.
After a time, the ground began to slope upward, and they ascended a small hill. As they reached the crest they saw arrayed before them an enormous banquet. It covered a table that stretched so far into the distance that Samuel lost sight of it in the dreary white mist always lurking on the horizon, but he could see every kind of food imaginable laid out on it, from breads to desserts and everything in between, with dusty bottles of fine wine interspersed among the bowls and dishes. It was a feast beyond compare, yet although Samuel and Boswell were starving, they did not feel their appetites piqued by what they saw. Perhaps it was because the food, regardless of its type, was a uniform dull gray, or because, even as they drew closer, they could detect no smell from it.
Or it may have been the behavior of those seated at the banquet, for chairs stood side by side along the length and breadth of the table, so close that there was no room for anyone else to squeeze in, and they were all occupied by thin, wasted people who forced food constantly into their mouths, and guzzled wine while their jaws chomped tirelessly, half-chewed meats and gray liquid dripping from their chins and staining their clothes.
Samuel and Boswell were now close enough to the feast to be noticed by the man seated at the head of the table. He wore a tuxedo with a crooked bow tie. His shirt buttons were open, and a distended belly bulged through the gap, but it was not the belly of a fat person. Samuel had seen poor, hungry people on television, and he knew that chronic malnutrition made the stomach swell. This man was starving, yet he had more than enough food to eat. While Samuel watched, the man tossed aside a half-eaten chicken leg and began chomping on a juicy, if slate-colored, steak. As one dish was finished a new one appeared, so that there was never an empty plate on the table.
The man spotted Samuel, but he did not stop eating.
“Get away,” he said. “There isn’t enough for anyone else.�
��
“There’s barely enough for us,” said a woman to his left, who was eating caviar with a huge wooden spoon, shoveling the little fish eggs into her mouth. She wore an ornate ball gown, and her head was topped by a white wig dotted with crystals. “And you haven’t been invited.”
“How do you know?” asked Samuel.
“Because if you were invited there would be a chair for you, but there isn’t, so you haven’t. Now run along. Don’t you know that you shouldn’t interrupt people when they’re eating? You’re making me talk with my mouth full. That’s rude.”
“And she’s spilling some,” said a tall bald man sitting across from her. “If she doesn’t want that caviar, I’ll have it.”
He reached for the bowl, but the woman slapped him hard on the hand with the spoon.
“Get your own!” she snapped.
“But the food has no smell,” said Samuel, almost to himself.
“No smell,” said the man in the tuxedo. “No taste. No texture. No color. But I’m so hungry, always so hungry.” He polished off the steak and moved on to a bowl of trifle, using his hand to scoop up mouthfuls of jelly, sponge, and custard. “I’m so hungry, I could eat you. And your dog.”
And for the first time in centuries, for he had been at the table for a very, very long time, the man in the tuxedo stopped eating, and began thinking. There was a new hunger in his eyes as he examined Samuel the way a chef might examine a pig that has been offered to him by the butcher, sizing it up for the best cuts. Beside him, the woman turned her gaze on Samuel, her mouth open, caviar falling from her tongue. The tall bald man set aside a fish head, and picked up a sharp knife.
The Infernals aka Hell's Bells Page 12