by Alex Smith
“Please wait where you are, sir,” the woman said. “We’ll send somebody out. Can you tell me more? Who attacked you?”
Blake pressed the button, but the words got stuck in his throat. Something had moved out there, a flash of darkness against the woods. He dropped the radio and grabbed the first aid kit, climbing out and scanning the trees. He was sure he’d seen it.
“Sir?” the radio squawked.
He ignored it, walking to the nearest constable. The man’s face was in the mud, which was a blessing. Blake searched the stiffening body, finding a phone, a packet of chewing gum, no baton.
“Shit,” he said.
Something cracked in the woods, a branch snapping. Or had it been the fire?
Blake pushed himself up, teetering to the side, only staying upright because of the UPS truck. The back doors were still open and he glanced inside. It was like a medieval war room in there, a dozen weapons hanging from wooden racks on the walls. Only one was within reach of where he stood, but it was the one he wanted.
The yellow-handled axe was heavier than it looked, heavier than it had any right to be, and when he pulled it free it dropped to the floor of the van with a sound like a church bell. He used it like a walking stick, leaning on it with one hand and tucking the first aid kit into the waistband of his pants. If he could get it back to Julia then she might be able to use it, she might be able to keep death away for a little longer. There was a torch in the truck too and he took it, turning it on for a second to make sure it worked before switching it off.
He set off, pushing himself away from the truck and into the night like he was inside a dinghy on the cold, dark ocean. He stumbled across the driveway, heading for the woods, his top half bare apart from a skin of blood and dirt and bruises. There was another flash of darkness up ahead but by the time he’d twisted his head around it was gone.
Just his head playing tricks. He was running on fumes, his peripheral vision already lost, the world a tunnel of smoke and fire and moonlight. Connor’s cries filled the night.
I’m coming, he said, hoping the message might find his son. I’m nearly there.
If he could get to them, if they could hold out in the woods, then they might be okay. Help was on its way, the police would be here—armed police, surely, because he’d told them about the gun—an ambulance too. If he could just remember where they were then they would be okay.
He ducked between two trees, the forest welcoming him like an old enemy. Pine needles scratched his face, his exposed skin. The flames had eaten through the roof of the house, painting the trees orange. But the darkness between them was still absolute, the very edge of the world.
Blake put his head down, one foot in front of the other. All that existed was the voice of his son, calling to him.
Then nothing.
The woods were plunged into a silence so profound that Blake thought he’d gone deaf—almost wished he’d gone deaf, because when he took another step and a branch cracked beneath his foot he knew that it was Connor who had fallen silent.
Fallen silent mid-scream.
He staggered on, too fast, tripping into that awful silence. He flicked on the torch, the darkness shrinking away but only slightly, prowling between the trees, watching him.
“Connor?” he called, seeing nothing but wood, leaves, undergrowth. “Julia? Where are you?” He knew that his voice could draw the devil to him but he was too scared to stop, too scared of that silence. “Julia?”
He swung the torch, catching a glimpse of something white. He charged towards it.
“Julia?”
She sat there, where he’d left her, leaning against the tree. Her head lolled, her eyes closed. Everything from the chest down was slick with blood, making her almost invisible against the night. Only the shoulders of her shirt stood out, seeming to glow—and her face, impossibly pale.
She’s dead, he thought. And it was like somebody had plunged a knife into his chest again—oh god no, she’s dead—finding his heart this time—please no no no—and twisting it.
She was dead.
And so much worse than that: Connor was gone.
Sixty-Two
Blake dropped to his knees by his wife’s side and laid a hand on her forehead. She was cold, perfectly still.
She groaned.
He jumped like he’d been tasered, cupping her head and calling her name. He pressed his fingers to her throat, looking for a pulse—pause, pause, pause, beat, pause, pause, pause, beat—as weak as a butterfly’s wings. He tapped her cheek, gently, and again, until one eyelid peeled open. It took her an age to find him, and she was only able to focus for a second before drifting away again.
“Julia,” Blake said. She turned her head, studying him like he was a stranger. He ripped open the first aid kit and placed it on her lap. “There’s some stuff here,” he said, using everything he had to hold back the tears. He tipped the kit out, just painkillers and bandages. It was useless, useless. “Where did they take him? Connor?”
“Connor?” she said, smiling. “He’s at nursery, B. Can you pick him up? I don’t feel…”
She lost him again, staring at something only she could see. He leaned in and kissed her forehead, then used the tree to pull himself up. He couldn’t stay here, he couldn’t fix her, not until he’d found his son. He turned back the way he’d come, the fire so bright it could have been dawn burning through the forest. The devil had come into the woods, he’d taken Connor, snatched him from his wife’s arms. The rage that boiled inside Blake was an inferno of its own, just as dangerous as the fire that ate through the house. It consumed him.
“Where are you?” he roared.
An answering cry, so faint that Blake wasn’t sure he’d even heard it, wasn’t sure it was real.
He set off, still using the axe like a crutch. He was almost at the treeline when he heard his son’s cries again, definitely real. They were coming from the direction of the house.
“Connor!” he yelled, the shout breaking down into a fit of coughs. “Connor!”
He stepped out of the trees, the garage right in front of him, the back garden deserted. The fire was devouring the house with unrelenting fury, the roof now completely ablaze. The heat coming off it was a physical force that pushed Blake back. But when his son cried out again, it was from that direction.
“Bring him back!” he called out, his words lost in the roar of the flames, in the machine-gun crack of wood.
No answer, other than Connor’s gulping, sickening sobs.
Blake walked along the side of the garage, glowing embers drifting down and landing on his bare skin. He lifted the axe, holding it against his good shoulder as he limped into the front garden.
The devil was standing there, twenty-five feet away. He held Connor by the leg like he was a rabbit taken from a trap. The kid was screaming, his face red and bloated from the blood that pooled there. His chubby arms snatched at the ground.
Blake stopped, clutching the axe. He wondered if he could make it across the garden fast enough to cleave the man’s face in two.
The devil looked at Blake. His face was carved from stone but his eyes were alive with something more than the reflected firelight, something unrecognisable, something demonic. He still seemed too tall, bigger now than he had been before, than he had been when he’d turned up at Blake’s house all those days ago. His long coat billowed in the powerful breath of the fire, his hair twisting itself in knots.
Just a man, Blake said. Just a man. But it was so hard to believe.
“Let him go,” he said.
The devil breathed in, his nostrils flaring. The corner of his mouth curved up into what might have been a smile.
“I don’t smell it, Blake,” he said. “You’re not afraid anymore.”
Blake took a halting step, adjusting his grip on the axe. The man breathed out a laugh.
“You should be,” he said. “Your wife is dead.”
Blake almost corrected him, then clamped his mouth s
hut.
“And very soon your son will be too. I told you this would happen if you disobeyed me, and I do not lie.”
Something big cracked inside the house, the ceiling groaning.
“You don’t lie?” said Blake, taking another step. Just keep him talking. “That’s all you are, one big, pathetic lie. The devil? Come on. Do you really believe that?”
“Do you really doubt it?” the man said, his face peeling open into that Joker’s smile. Connor screamed and the man shook him like he was a stray dog. “After everything you’ve seen, can you really doubt it?”
“What I’ve seen?” Blake said, still moving. The axe weighed a tonne in his hands but he only needed to swing it once. “All I see is a guy who’s obviously got some serious psychological issues, a proper fucking psychopath who picks up boys and uses them, warps them. They’re dead, you know? You couldn’t save them.”
The man shrugged, still grinning.
“They are nothing,” he said. “They are legion, and legions cannot die. They will be replaced. The world needs its gods, and it needs its devils too. They flock to me.”
“No, they don’t,” Blake said. Fifteen feet now. “You hunt them. Hellesdon, wasn’t it? Where you found Daniel?”
The man’s smile dropped away, his eyes growing dark. He lifted Connor and clamped him beneath his arm. The kid unleashed an ear-piercing cry, his legs kicking at the air. Blake faltered, his foot hovering in mid-air then retreating. All the man had to do was squeeze.
“Is that what he told you?” the man said. “Daniel was always weak. He didn’t have it in him to be one of us. I punished him, I gave him back his name.”
“His name,” Blake said. “You think that’s what killed him? His name?”
“Names are powerful, Blake,” said the man, watching Blake take another step.
“Yeah, so what’s yours?”
“I have no name,” he said. “And I have a thousand names.”
“You really believe it, don’t you?” Blake said, shunting forward. “You really believe you’re the devil. But you’re not. I know you’re not. I know you used to work there, at the hospital.” Step. Breathe. “I know that’s how you started. Just a lanky, ugly, useless fuck.” Step. Breathe. “Bored out of your mind, bored of torturing cats and dogs, am I right? You sick fucks always start with animals. You saw how far gone they were.” Step. Breathe. “The kids who came to you for help. You saw how much they needed somebody to look up to. You saw what they would do for you, when they bought into your lies. Saw that they would worship you, kill for you.” Step. Breathe. “And you found them outside, too, didn’t you? The strays and the lost boys, the street kids.” Step. Breathe. “What did you tell them? That if they followed you then you’d reward them? With what? With not washing? With stinking like piss and shit? With killing children?” Step. Breathe. “And you know how I know you’re not the devil? You know what really gave it away?” Step. Breathe. “This whole six days bullshit. Six days, six hours, six minutes? Come on, only a self-deluded prick with no imagination would come up with that one.”
He had to stop, his lungs on fire. And through the smoke, through the shimmering air, he saw the man—really saw him—for the first time. His eyes watered from the heat, just like Blake’s. He had a cut on his lip. One of the buttons of his shirt was in the wrong hole.
He looked past the filthy trousers, down to the feet. And he laughed, he couldn’t help himself. His feet. The guy was wearing platforms—six-inch orthopaedic boots that made him look taller than he was. Blake snorted through his nose.
“You’re just a man,” Blake said.
He raised the axe, almost close enough now, just another couple of steps. The man shook his head, and it was as if he drew his illusion back over himself, as if he reached back and grabbed a handful of night. He stood straight and tall, towering above Blake and grinning again, his eyes full of reflected fire. He believed it, Blake saw. He believed his own lie.
“I am so much more than a man,” he said.
He turned around and ran up the steps of the veranda, through the front door of the house, vanishing into the inferno.
Sixty-Three
“Connor!”
Blake ran after them, tripping on something in the grass and falling. The axe clattered onto the veranda and he fumbled it back into his hand. He grabbed hold of the railing, pulling himself up one step at a time. The heat from inside was like a blast furnace but he put his head down, forged on. His son was in there, he would boil alive.
He reached the front door, a curtain of smoke hanging inside it. He breathed and his lungs seemed to bake, no air. The coughs were uncontrollable, each one ravaging his body, threatening to shake him to pieces. He blinked the tears away and pushed through the broken board.
Smoke flooded the ceiling of the entrance hall, an upturned ocean. Ahead, the fire raged at the top of the stairs, a snowstorm of glowing ash pouring down. The kitchen at the back of the house was lost in flame and it was spreading fast.
“Connor!” His voice was a wheeze, drowned in the thunder of the blaze. He knew his son couldn’t reply, he just didn’t want him to think he was alone, didn’t want him to die thinking that nobody had come for him.
No.
He ducked down beneath the smoke, pushing into that impossible heat. Where the fuck had he gone? He tried to call his son’s name again but all that came out were whooping coughs, so violent that he collapsed onto one knee and almost couldn’t get up again.
Growling, he forced himself forward. Somewhere in the maelstrom, Connor was sobbing, coughing. All the man had to do was throw him into the flames and the kid would be gone.
No.
The arched door to the living room was ahead and Blake hurried to it, the axe clutched in his fist. There was less smoke in here, but the ceiling in the middle of the room glowed red hot, something burning through from upstairs. He stared into the tendrils of smoke, into the shimmering haze, not seeing Connor until the kid cried out again.
He lay on the floor in front of the fireplace, in that pile of photographs. He was struggling to sit up but he was coughing too hard, his face soot-blackened and streaked with snot. Blake ran to him, knowing even as he did that he should have checked the room, that he’d made a mistake.
The devil hurtled in like a train, thumping into Blake so hard that the tackle lifted him over the sofa, throwing him down on the other side. He rolled, hitting the wall, the house seeming to flip upside down. He shook the stars from his eyes and saw the man step over the sofa slowly, almost leisurely. He tried to crawl away, but his shoulder was too weak to hold him up and he thumped down onto his face. His son was still coughing, choking, desperate.
“Connor,” he said.
The devil grabbed Blake’s ankle, dragging him around the sofa into the middle of the room. He felt fingers wrap around his throat, as tight as a steel collar, lifting him like he was a ragdoll, like he was made of feathers and dust. And then the man’s face was right in front of his. Even past the smoke the smell of him was awful, it seemed to reach into his lungs and pull out every last scrap of oxygen. It was the smell of death, he thought. It was the stench of hell, pure and simple.
“Look at him,” the man said, twisting Blake’s face to the side.
Blake looked, seeing Connor squirming in that altar of rot, choking. The candles on the mantel were melting in the heat, wax dripping onto the floor, onto his son’s skin. Something overhead cracked and a flurry of sparks fizzled into the room on a wave of blistering heat.
No.
He lashed out, his fist hitting the devil in the shoulder, then in the neck. The man didn’t even seem to feel it, his laughter a tremor deep inside him, one that seemed to make his entire body rock. He gripped Blake’s throat even tighter and held his head there, forcing him to look.
“He’s dying,” the man said, whispering into Blake’s ear. “His lungs are burning, his skin will char like a suckling pig.”
Blake howled, a noise of pu
re anguish. Connor had managed to get onto all fours and was crawling blindly into the fireplace.
“His blood will boil,” the man said, his big, wet eyes full of fire.
Connor slipped, falling into the hearth, into the place where the padlocked box had been.
“I told you, did I not?” the man said.
The box.
“Did I not make it clear, Blake?”
The newspaper clipping.
“That your wife and child would die.”
The carving on the lid, almost obscured by the mark but still there, still there. Those four words: He is only ash.
“That they would die an unthinkable death.”
The ceiling opened and something big burned through, landing on the sofa. The house groaned like a dying whale, the entire structure threatening to collapse. Blake ignored it, he ignored his son, reaching for the thought, for whatever clawed at the front of his skull.
He is only ash.
Just words. But they had meant something to Daniel, they had meant enough for him to carve them into the wood, into the place where he’d kept his biggest secret, the place where he’d kept the truth about the devil, the place he’d saved a fragment of his old life.
“I told you, did I not?” the man said.
He is only ash.
The sofa ignited and Blake felt the heat carve itself into his skin like a surgeon’s blade, like it meant to peel him open to see what lay inside. It was too hot to see, the tears evaporating from his eyes, too painful to even blink.
“That they would know the full horror of hell before I ended them.”
The man clenched his hand, forcing Blake to watch as Connor curled up in the fireplace, surrendering.
Ash.
“Look, Blake.”
Ash.
Not just a word.
Ash.
A name.
Blake opened his mouth, nothing left in his lungs, nothing left anywhere. But he reached down into himself, as deep as he could go, and he found it, that last scrap of strength—not much, but enough.