by Unknown
‘I agree with Spit,’ said Cherry. ‘The heat’s definitely got to you.’
As if in agreement, a rattle, squeal, crash, gurgle and bang echoed down a nearby pipe.
‘It’s far too dangerous,’ said Inchy, holding his Scales of Justice. He touched one of the little golden bowls dangling from the scales and said, ‘On this side, we’ve got us getting Dante. And on this side,’ he touched the other bowl, ‘we’ve got us telling Gabriel and letting him sort it out.’
Inchy had barely touched the second bowl before it plummeted towards the ground like it was made of lead.
‘And what’s that supposed to tell us?’ asked Spit.
‘That we should go to Gabriel, doofus.’
‘And what will Gabriel do?’ asked Alex.
‘He’ll send in the Guardian Angels. Special Operations,’ said Inchy promptly. ‘Straight in and straight out. Almost clinical, really. No humans will get hurt, no one will ever know. They’re pretty cool, those Spec Ops guys.’
‘I know,’ said House. ‘It’s what I want to be when I pass my exams.’
‘Gabriel won’t just do that, though,’ said Alex. ‘He’ll also claim the glory for himself, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t help thinking that if there’s one angel who doesn’t need any more glory, it’s Gabriel.’
‘He’d reward us, surely?’ pouted Cherry.
‘No, he wouldn’t,’ said Alex. ‘He’d want to hide the fact that it was us that found out about Dante in the first place. For all we know, he might even leave us down here for good so that we could never tell people what really happened.’
The gang went silent.
‘Think of it, Cherry; imagine returning home as a hero, crowds cheering, everyone asking you about how you captured the demon. They’d be telling stories about you forever – the youngest‐ever demon‐catching Cherub!’
‘It would be pretty cool,’ admitted Cherry.
‘And you, House,’ said Alex. ‘You say you want to go into Spec Ops; well, here’s your chance to really impress them!’
House nodded thoughtfully.
‘What about you, Inchy? You’re the one with all the brains. Don’t you want to test yourself a bit, to see if you’ve really got what it takes? What better challenge than beating a demon?’
Inchy bit his lip, his brow furrowed. But he looked tempted.
‘That leaves you, Spit. You’re supposed to be a High Flyer. Are you going to back down and be a coward instead? Nothing more than an angel who sits at home and listens to everyone talking about how Gabriel nabbed a demon you could’ve caught yourself? Is that really what you want?’
Spit simply stared at Alex, his eyes almost hidden behind the black hair of his fringe.
‘You reckon Spec Ops would take me seriously?’ asked House.
‘What do you think?’ replied Alex.
‘I’d rather return to Cloud Nine as a hero than someone who’s just learned a lesson,’ said Cherry.
‘What about you, Inchy? Spit?’
Inchy stuffed his hands into his pockets.
‘I guess it’s worth thinking about,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s not like we actually have to catch Dante right now, is it? We could just… find out a bit more about him, couldn’t we?’
‘This is insane,’ said Spit. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
Alex nodded.
Spit sighed. ‘Then count me in.’
‘So, are we going to need a net?’
‘What for?’ asked Alex, baffled by House’s earnest question.
‘To catch the demon. Spit said we’d need a net.’
Alex smiled.
‘No, we don’t need a net. Well, not yet, anyway.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ Cherry sounded keen to get going.
‘Well, none of us studied demons very much back at Cloud Nine, so the first thing we need to do is some research – we need to know how we can recognize them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, whether they have any secret powers. That sort of thing.’
‘I could do that,’ chirped Inchy. ‘The library’s like a second home for me.’
‘Cool,’ said Alex. ‘Meanwhile –’
‘Hang on,’ interrupted Spit. ‘We’re going to need Inchy to keep tabs on Dante and see if he’s up to anything. He’s the smallest and quietest, so he’s the least likely to get caught.’
‘But someone’s got to hit the books,’ complained Alex. ‘We have to find out what we’re dealing with.’
Spit shrugged. ‘I could do it.’
‘You?’ Cherry frowned. ‘You don’t usually volunteer to do anything.’
‘Yeah… well…’ replied Spit awkwardly. ‘… I know how important this is,’ he finished in a rush.
‘Good lad!’ beamed Alex. ‘That’s the attitude! Cherry, why don’t you get some archery practice in after school. You have to admit that you need it, and we might need your firepower.’
Cherry bristled at the suggestion that she needed to practise, but Alex carried on regardless. ‘House, I suggest you get reading that training manual of yours; if we ever needed a Guardian Angel, it’s now.’
‘That leaves you,’ said House.
Alex grinned.
‘I’m going to do what I do best – cause trouble. If Dante’s always got his eye on me, he’s less likely to notice that you lot are up to something.’
‘So you’re a decoy, then?’
‘Yeah,’ said Alex with a gulp. ‘But it doesn’t sound like much fun when you put it like that, does it?’
For the rest of the week, the gang went about their school routine as inconspicuously as possible. Not only was there the mission to prove that Dante was indeed a demon, but the first footie match was fast approaching. The team had to practise after school every night, which meant they had to use lunch‐ and breaktimes for their undercover activities.
Spit spent most breaktimes in the library. He’d soon discovered that none of the books were any help, and had hopped on to the Internet instead, spending hours surfing weird and wonderful websites on Demonology. He was certainly throwing himself into the research much more willingly than Alex had expected.
Inchy was doing his best to find out what Dante got up to when he wasn’t teaching. He was pretty close to being spotted a number of times, but thanks to his size and speed he always managed to duck round a corner or into a store cupboard in the nick of time.
Cherry was trying to improve her shooting, without much success. She was still haunted by the memory of the disastrous arrow she’d fired at the fountain‐switch back at Cloud Nine. No true Cherub would ever shoot like that. She was practising by firing at a big heart‐shaped target she’d made from cardboard and placed at the bottom of the garden at number 92. She didn’t hit it very much, but by Friday she wasn’t losing her arrows so often.
When House wasn’t reading, he was running or doing press‐ups or jumping and flipping round the garden, destroying invisible villains with deadly lightning‐quick kicks and punches. At least in his mind. In reality, he was having trouble mastering the advanced techniques in the Guardian Angel manual. So far he had managed to trip over a hosepipe, smash the bird bath to smithereens and flatten a flower bed full of roses. Cherry had spent one whole evening reluctantly pulling thorns out of his bottom.
But it was Alex who had the worst time out of everyone. By far. He’d been quite looking forward to unleashing his full powers of mischief‐making on Mr Dante, but he soon found that playing pranks and tricks just wasn’t any fun when he was trying to get caught instead of trying to get away with it. And although Alex’s attention‐seeking antics succeeded in keeping Dante’s attention firmly on him rather than the rest of the gang, that was most definitely a mixed blessing. It just meant he had to bear the brunt of the endless list of punishments that Dante threw at him, from blackboard‐rubber dustings to hundreds and hundreds of lines. The only thing that kept him going was the thought of revenge.
‘I’ll get you, demo
n,’ he muttered, as he left his third detention with Dante that week. ‘You see if I don’t.’
It was on Friday that the gang’s hard work finally paid off.
‘I’ve seen something,’ whispered Inchy, as they gathered up their bags in the cloakroom at the end of the day. ‘I followed Dante and… something happened.’
Alex stopped and looked at him. Inchy was pale and his eyes were wide.
‘We can’t talk about this here,’ said Alex, looking at all the other kids milling around, collecting their coats and lunchboxes.
‘We can’t exactly talk about it back at the house either, though, can we?’ whispered Cherry. ‘If Tabbris hears what we’re up to, we’ll be in even deeper trouble than we already are. He’ll never recommend that Gabriel should take us back. We’ll probably be forced to stay here forever!’
‘I’ve got a place we can go,’ said House.
‘What?’ asked Alex incredulously.
‘Um, I found a shed in the woods at the bottom of the garden. It’s totally hidden because the wood’s so overgrown. I don’t think Tabbris ever goes there, or if he even knows it exists. I’ve been using it as, like, my base.’
‘Ooh, our very own secret gang hideout,’ smirked Spit.
‘Shut up, Spit,’ said Alex. ‘It sounds perfect.’
‘But won’t Tabbris notice us all tramping down to it?’ asked Inchy.
‘No,’ said House. ‘Not if we cut down the side of the garden, behind all the hedges. We’ll probably need to take some torches or candles or something, but it’ll be all right. We can sneak out through the bedroom window.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Alex. ‘Let’s put this plan into action. Tonight.’
For once, bedtime arrived too slowly for everyone. Eventually, though, the gang trooped up to their room, leaving Tabbris downstairs, polishing his big silver Order of Raphael medal. The old angel was deaf in one ear and Alex reckoned that if they were quiet, he’d never notice them slipping out.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll go first. The rest of you follow, one by one.’
‘Are we really going to have a secret gang hideout?’ asked Spit.
‘Got a problem with that?’
‘No, not really,’ replied Spit. ‘Just seems a bit melodramatic, that’s all.’
‘Stay here if you want.’
‘What, and miss all the fun?’
Alex made his way over to the window and opened it.
‘Count to ten, then follow, one at a time, OK?’
Seconds later, he clambered out of the window and down into the garden.
It was already getting dark, even though it was only just past eight o’clock. For once, Alex was glad that Tabbris had set them such a stupidly early bedtime. The air was cool and the garden looked eerie in the half‐light. Alex stood silent for a moment. Then, as quietly as possible, he made his way to the thick holly hedge that ran along one side of the garden.
Behind the hedge everything smelled damp and woody. The ground was soft, and tiny twigs and dead leaves cracked and crunched loudly. Alex was thankful when at last he found himself by the old shed. He made his way to the door, pushed it open and sneaked in. Inside, he flicked on a torch just as Cherry arrived.
‘You didn’t waste any time.’
‘I found these in one of the drawers in our room,’ said Cherry, and handed Alex a box of candles and some matches.
‘Look at this place,’ said Alex, flashing the torch around the shed. The walls were covered in shelves, filled with dust and pots of paint. Hanging on one wall were various garden implements. Alex quickly moved some old wooden boxes into a circle on the floor, with a larger box in the middle as a sort of table.
‘Put the candles on that,’ he said, and Cherry began lighting the candles, using melting wax to stick them to the box.
‘This is cool!’ said House as he came through the shed door.
‘Freezing, more like,’ said Inchy, arriving at the same time.
‘I thought I said to count to ten before following each other,’ complained Alex.
‘I did. But House goes a lot slower than I do.’
Finally, Spit arrived.
‘Cosy.’
Alex took the lead.
‘Right, everyone, sit down. Inchy? Over to you.’
Everyone took their places round the box, now covered in burning candles. It looked like an enormous birthday cake.
‘To be honest, I’d almost given up. Dante didn’t go anywhere odd or do anything strange all week. It was like he was just a mental teacher who hated everyone, particularly Alex.’
Alex shrugged.
‘Anyway, it was when I was following him at lunch today that it happened. You see, he usually spends lunch in his office. I’ve never managed to get in, but I’ve watched the door, so I know he just stays in there. But today he didn’t; he went to the cellar.’
‘What cellar?’ asked Spit.
‘It’s under the hall. There’s a door to it at the far end of that creepy corridor with all the old classrooms that nobody uses. I managed to sneak in after him and down the stairs. It’s really scary down there. There isn’t much light, but there’s a load of old rooms, full of junk. I had to go really carefully so I didn’t knock anything over. Then I heard voices up ahead. One of them was Dante’s, but I didn’t recognize the other one.’
‘Did you see them?’ asked House.
‘Well, it was pretty nerve‐racking, but I crept a bit closer. It was really, really hot and stuffy, and there was this strange red light. And then I saw them.’
‘Dante?’ asked Cherry.
‘Yeah,’ said Inchy. ‘And someone else. I didn’t see a face or anything, only a shadow on the wall, but it was someone bigger than Dante. Not just taller, but bigger in every way. This other person seemed to tower over him. And they were laughing. And then… I saw their shadows change.’
Inchy’s face had turned white again, and his voice was shaking.
‘What did you see?’ asked Alex. ‘You have to tell us.’
Inchy gulped.
‘Wings,’ he said. ‘They both had wings.’
8
Busted
‘I thought silver was werewolves,’ said Cherry.
The gang had just left home and were on their way to school. It was already Friday again, the end of their third week on Earth and the day of the big football match.
‘Isn’t that vampires?’ asked House.
‘No,’ said Inchy, ‘vampires are crucifixes and holy water.’
‘I thought holy water was zombies?’ Alex put in.
‘No,’ corrected Cherry, ‘nothing stops a zombie except lopping its head off.’
‘A good punch in the face works,’ said House. ‘So long as the punch actually goes through its head and out the other side.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, now you do,’ said House smugly.
‘It’s silver,’ repeated Spit. ‘Trust me – I’ve been researching it all last week and all this week. Demons is silver, I’m sure of it.’
After Inchy’s revelation that there might be two demons at large in Green Hill School, the gang had doubled their efforts to prove it. Their schoolwork – even the footie match – had paled into insignificance against the possibility of being able to get back into Cloud Nine Academy not simply by serving out their punishment on Earth, but as heroes who’d foiled an evil demonic plot.
‘What does silver do to them?’ asked Cherry, as the gang turned on to Scholar’s Walk, the road leading to the school. It was thronged with pupils. Alarmingly, most of them seemed to be wearing scarfs bearing the name of the team’s opponents, The Black Crows.
‘I don’t really know,’ said Spit, ‘but everywhere I looked, it said that silver was useful against demons. Anything up to Level Five.’
‘What’s Level Five?’ asked House.
Inchy stepped forward, his face serious.
‘Level Fives are, like, the oldest of the old. Th
ey’ve been around since the beginning,’ he explained. ‘Hard as nails. They’re rarely heard of now. They generally get lesser demons to do their dirty work. The only demon more powerful is the General, and we all know about him.’
‘The General?’
‘Satan,’ said Cherry.
‘Oh, right,’ gulped House. ‘That General. Oh dear.’
‘So we don’t actually know that it’ll work, then?’ said Alex.
‘Look,’ said Spit, ‘there isn’t a handy book in the human library called Behold the Many Ways to Smite Demons! None of us studied demons at Cloud Nine, and we can’t just nip into the Heavenly Library, seeing as we’re stuck on Earth. What else do you want me to do: go up and ask Dante if there’s an easy way to kill him?’
Alex sighed with exasperation.
‘Spit’s done his best,’ said Cherry. ‘You shouldn’t be so hard on him, Alex.’
‘I’m not being hard on him. I’m not being hard on you, Spit. I just don’t want us to mess this up.’
‘Neither do I,’ snapped Spit.
‘So where are we going to get silver?’ asked House.
‘That’s easy,’ said Alex. ‘The trophy cabinet at school. It’s stuffed with silver cups and stuff. All we need to do is scrape some off and we’re sorted.’
‘We’ll leave that to you, then,’ said Inchy. ‘It won’t seem so out of the ordinary if you get caught.’
‘When are you going to do it?’ asked Cherry.
‘In one of this morning’s lessons,’ said Alex. ‘I’ll ask to go to the toilet and sort it out then. Trust me.’
‘I hate it when you say that,’ said House.
Halfway through English, Alex asked to be excused. A couple of minutes later, though, he was nowhere near the toilets. Instead, he was gazing through the glass of the trophy cabinet.
First, Alex tried the door handle, but it was locked. With a quick look up and down the corridor, he pulled out his Lucky Dip and dug out some bits of tough wire. Bending the end of the wire, he inserted it into the lock, pushed, twisted and – bingo! – the lock popped open.
‘Genius,’ Alex muttered to himself.
Alex looked at the trophies. There were more than he realized, all different shapes and sizes. He pulled out some tissue paper from his pocket and rested it on the floor. Next he grabbed one of the really big trophies and, with the edge of a small penknife, he scraped some tiny shavings off the trophy and on to the tissue.