by Tony Moyle
“Weak,” croaked Brimstone. “Simple as that. Now if you don’t mind, I have a little trouble of my own.”
*****
Brimstone was hot, even for him. He’d marched as quickly as his short, stumpy legs carried him, back down to the broken machinery. He switched the Soul Catcher back on and it rocked into life. The screens flashed on, and he breathed a sulphurous sigh of relief. The left-hand screen was blank and whatever had appeared there was nowhere to be seen. The list on the right was slowly and surely traversing over. Everything in Brimstone’s world appeared to be back to normal, except for one tiny, and seemingly unimportant thing. A small, red light flickered on the dashboard of the console.
He knew what it was. He knew when it came on. It was the light that indicated that the Soul Catcher had become a soul thrower. If he hadn’t reversed the Soul Catcher, then someone else had. Had it been on before he left and he just hadn’t noticed it? Maybe it was just another malfunction, nothing to be worried about.
“Brimstone, level twelve. NOW,” came the call again on the tannoy. He stared up in the air and wondered if his legs were capable of another twelve-floor dash.
*****
John’s solid metal box lay at rest on the floor. An even bigger crowd than before surrounded the front. They pushed for position to peer in, fascinated by the interior. Brimstone’s view was blocked and he couldn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. Asmodeus wasn’t amongst the crowd, but he was definitely within earshot. He was single-handedly ripping down all the other metal cubes from their positions and smashing their contents onto the ground. The floor shook so viciously they felt it all the way down on level zero. All around them, smashed boxes presented the remains of ghostly, plastic figures sprawled where they had landed.
Brimstone pushed his way through the legs of the crowd until he got to the front of the queue. The door of John’s cask was open on one side, revealing its almost empty cavity. On the metal floor of the cube lay the flaccid and empty vessol of John Hewson’s last resting place. It was in exactly the same condition as when Brimstone had attached it to the Soul Catcher in anticipation of John’s arrival.
“John’s gone!” Brimstone gasped out loud.
The demons around him seemed unwilling to nod in agreement in case it stood against them in any future promotion.
“He must be around here somewhere?” Brimstone appealed to the other demons.
“We’ve done a complete scan. The majority of him is gone,” replied a purple demon constructed completely out of iodine.
“What do you mean, the majority of him?” questioned Brimstone.
“Well, his energy appears to be here, but his soul has gone.”
“Maybe he has diminished, then,” Brimstone replied, pointing a craggy finger into space. The other demons shook their heads.
“It’s not possible. He must have been recycled. If not, Asmodeus will rip this place apart if we don’t find him. Including us,” replied Brimstone.
“Look inside the cask,” added another of the demons from the throng.
Brimstone’s molten skin produced a red glow all over the shiny metal walls as he walked easily into the cube and found and what the demon must have been referring to. On one of the walls an inscription had burnt through the metal. The marks had been melted into the side but were quite clear and easy to read. In letters, six inches in height, running around the walls read, ‘Remember Newton’s Third’.
“What does it mean, Brimstone?” asked one of the demons from the crowd as he re-emerged from the cell.
“John’s gone,” replied Brimstone, “but not for good.”
* * *
[PP1]do you mean ‘inane’ ?
[PP2]This may need checking
[PP3]‘curry’ ?
[PP4]This is more of an Americanism
[PP5]This is an Americanism
[PP6]Unclear
[PP7]OK?