by Heide Goody
“And so,” said Thomas, “we ask again. What happened to all the sin?”
Hubertus burst into tears. “We should never have lied to you! I am so sorry, my friends! How can I make it up to you?”
“Lied? What lies?” demanded Thomas.
Hubertus wiped his snotty nose with his red felt hat. “If we had told you the truth in the first place, this would have never happened!”
“We?”
“If we’d told you the truth,” said Belphegor, the picture of self-control compared to the blubbering drunkard, “you would have done nothing.”
“I knew it was you!” crowed Thomas. “You did it! Whatever it was! What was it you did?”
Belphegor wheeled over to the screen. Joan noted the archangel and Aquinas taking a step back. Her hand went unconsciously to the hilt of her sword.
“You removed Satan from Hell without a thought for the consequences,” said Belphegor. “Hell is an ecosystem like any other. What’s more, it’s a closed ecosystem. You removed Satan from the equation and let gigapeccados of sin flow in. Yes, it clogs things up. It’s a force. It is energy. What happens if you put more and more energy into a closed system?”
Gabriel and Thomas Aquinas looked blankly at each other. Joan was of no help either. None of them were exactly up to date on science-y matters.
“Boom?” suggested Rutspud.
“Boom indeed, Rutspud,” said Belphegor. “A few years ago, Hell suffered a catastrophic over-heating event. What do you think caused that?”
Rutspud started to speak but held himself in check.
“Yes, yes,” sighed Belphegor wearily, “we all know that you stole fuses from Hell’s furnaces, Rutspud. But, seriously, do you think that in the vast history of Hell there wouldn’t have been other such incidents if all it took to start them was the stupidity of a minor demon?”
“Stupidity is a strong word,” said Rutspud.
“The sin energy in Hell has been in constant unbalance since you sent Mr Clovenhoof to earth,” Belphegor said to Thomas and Gabriel, and Joan noted how he had gone from accused to accuser in only seconds. “And since the over-heating incident and subsequent flood,” Belphegor continued, “I have implemented a solution that works just fine, thank you. Without your help. Because I knew help wouldn’t be forthcoming! Not without the kind of strings Heaven attaches to everything.”
“And where does Hubertus come into this?” asked Joan.
The drunken hunter saint didn’t seem to hear her. He was now staring down into his open hat and looking both very repentant and nauseated. Joan hoped he could avoid throwing up while there was company in the room.
“Hubertus was necessary,” said Belphegor. “He was needed to hide the numerical discrepancies. He did me the favour of keeping shtum and in return” – Belphegor did a little wheelchair pirouette, arms stretched out to the computer screens and augmented reality equipment – “we gave him all this lovely technology to play with.”
“I knew this was Hell technology!” said Rutspud. “I said!”
“And what was the solution that you came up with, Belphegor?” said Joan.
Rutspud chuckled. She could see he himself had just realised. “You know, Joan. You’ve seen it. You’ve seen it all.”
“Have I?”
“I think we had all better take a look, hadn’t we?” said Gabriel firmly, trying to reassert his mastery of the situation.
“Very well,” said Belphegor and led the way back up to the main hall.
At the top of the stairs, Joan called back. “Hubertus? Are you coming?”
There was a response. It didn’t contain any words, but it was certainly vocal. And judging by the indignant bellowing of the awoken deer and the subsequent antler bashes and screams, Hubertus had missed his hat entirely.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
It was less than twenty-four hours until the PrayPal sin list was to be broadcast to the world and Clovenhoof was taking a tour of his kingdom. He’d inspected the crew and armaments of Fortress Floaty McBang-Bang. He watched the Boldmere Ponies go through their trolley-mounted parade drill. A portacabin Clovenhoof had not seen before had appeared near to Hooflandia’s southern border wall and he went inside to investigate.
Ben sat as chair of a very busy and vocal meeting. Flipchart papers were pinned to the walls and post-it notes and scribbled comments abounded.
“What’s all this then?” said Clovenhoof.
“Hi Jeremy,” said Ben, “this is our Bible creation team. That’s Leigh, Lindsay, Lara, Lola and Tim. Lindsay’s managing the community of wiki editors working on the text. Lola and Lara are working on packaging and manufacture. The publishers think we can get print-on-demand copies ready overnight.”
“Righto,” said Clovenhoof.
“Righto?” said a petite woman who was holding a giant portfolio under her arm. “I don’t think you realise how ground-breaking this is! We’re talking about compressing an eighteen-month process into no time at all.”
“Righto with knobs on,” said Clovenhoof, “and you would be doing that because you think you can make a ton of money, is that correct?”
“Commercial considerations are a factor, yes,” she sniffed.
“It’s going to go down a storm,” said Ben. “Seriously. There’s so much wisdom in here. It’s bang up to date with gems like The Parable of the Self-service Checkout, The Gospel according to Levi the Taxi Driver and a brand-new book of Rap Psalms. The rules of The Game form a whole new testament.”
“You’ve got a new New Testament?” said Clovenhoof.
“We decided to call it the Third Testament to get round that,” said Ben. “We’ve got a lot to cram in and not all of it makes sense. That’s why Leigh has flown in from LA to act as story editor.”
“Do we need a story editor?”
“Do you ever!” said an American woman. “This thing is a narrative nightmare. It’s Catwoman all over again and Halle, let me tell you, barely recovered from that horror.”
“Did she?” said Clovenhoof, who had no idea what she was talking about.
Leigh stabbed a marker pen at a sheet on the wall.
“First of all, we have no clear hero in this narrative. Who’s it meant to be? God? Moses? If it’s Jesus, then he doesn’t turn up until the third act. No, we need some clarity on who we’re meant to be rooting for.”
“I see.”
“And this Jesus character. Who is he? Is he a sort of Superman, last son of a dying planet? Is he more like Neo from The Matrix? That whole messianic thing has been done to death. What are we looking for? This is a story trying to be a thousand things at once.” She turned to Ben. “Are you sure this wouldn’t be better as a trilogy?”
“I’m not sure we have time to break it down.”
“Trilogies sell well,” said Leigh. “Look at Star Wars, the Godfather.”
“Big Momma’s House,” said Clovenhoof.
“We could probably get a TV or film deal if it was a trilogy. I know Marcus at HBO. You could be sitting on the next Game of Thrones. Or we could even sell it to Disney if you worked towards building up a whole cinematic universe.”
“I think some people might have issues with your idea of Jesus, Mohammed and Krishna teaming up to fight the bad guys,” said Ben.
“And who is the bad guy? Really?” said Leigh. “Satan? He barely gets a mention. He doesn’t even get a proper scene as the devil until the wilderness sections near the end. I just don’t buy him as our main antagonist.”
“You know, that’s what I’ve always thought,” said Clovenhoof.
“And he never really gets to flex his muscles. You’ve got an Old Testament that’s just punishment and reward, punishment and reward, some very confusing talky bits with the Christ boy and then things just get worse and worse until it all ends in a big mish-mash and – uggh! – the tritest deus ex machina you could imagine. Do you know what deus ex machina means?”
“Well, I think…” began Ben.
“It�
��s Latin for ‘too lazy to think of a proper ending,’” said Leigh.
“I tell you, if I ever find myself reading a book which is just madness piled on ridiculous madness and the only way the writers can get themselves out of it is having some sort of implausible supernatural intervention, that book’s going straight in the trash.”
“Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen with this book,” said Clovenhoof.
“Hmmm,” said Ben.
“What?” said Clovenhoof.
“Are we totally sold on it being an actual book?”
This nonsensical question suddenly sent the room into an uproar of loud argument.
“Surely, that’s the one thing it definitely is,” said Clovenhoof to Ben over the hubbub. “What is it going to be if it’s not a book?”
“I was thinking it could be a non-linear, open-ended narrative space with room for expansion modules.”
“What the hell does that mean?” said Clovenhoof but Ben’s answer was lost in the shouting.
The contingent of demons, angels and saints made their way across Limbo to Hell. Joan was going to tell Rutspud to take a detour so they wouldn’t have to pass that appalling den of tortures Claymore and company had built for themselves, but she realised she didn’t have to. Rutspud had no desire to go back there either and took them on an elliptical course on which they saw nothing at all (except some distant shadows in the mist which might have been St Francis, a lion and a three-headed dog frolicking gleefully together).
As they passed through the enormous concrete arch that had replaced the original gates of Hell, Belphegor pointed out the sucking air pipes that dotted the inner surface.
“Damned souls undergo a thorough sin-scraping when they enter Hell,” he said. “We try to capture every picapeccadillo.”
Rutspud pointed toward the line of pipes running up from the arch and away.
“And what happens to that sin, hmmm? Hmmm?” said Thomas, trying to sound fierce and interrogative but failing to hide his basic curiosity.
“It’s sent to the Infernal Innovations Centre,” said Belphegor. “This way.”
The rest of the party had to jog to keep up with Belphegor as his all-terrain wheelchair cut a speedy path over demons, damned and generally inconvenient geography on his way back to Infernal Innovations.
Beyond the furnaces and ironworks in the basement of the Fortress of Nameless Dread, they came to the entrance to the Infernal Innovations Programme. Belphegor indicated the pipes and the sin detector docking stations around the door.
“Any sin we pick up during our work and tests is safely gathered and piped away.”
“But to where?” said Gabriel.
Onward they went, across the open plan office and through the swing doors to Belphegor’s creativity hub. Thomas Aquinas gazed critically at the shunter capsule, the workbenches of schematics and the piles of prototype technology.
“What is this nonsense?” he said. “Some sort of workshop?”
Joan slapped his hand away as it strayed towards an interesting looking button. “You don’t want to press that,” she said. “Trust me.”
“Well?” Gabriel said to Belphegor. “Where next? Or is the tour over?”
Belphegor went to the large metal tank that dominated one side of the room. He banged it with his fist. It rumbled violently.
“It’s in here,” he said.
Joan stared. “Boris?”
“Boris?” said Gabriel.
“But I thought you had a thing in there,” said Joan.
“I do,” said Belphegor. “Sin. All the sins of Hell.”
“I meant something alive.”
Belphegor gave a broad shrug. “What is life in Hell?”
“But you gave it a name?”
Gabriel approached the tank and, hesitantly at first, placed his hands against it and then an ear.
“What sins are floating around in here?” he mused.
“Almost any you can imagine,” said Belphegor.
Gabriel stepped back and appraised it. “And these sins are dangerous?”
“As any form of energy source can be if it’s not properly contained.”
Gabriel tapped the tank as though confirming its solidity. The contents groaned and roared.
“And it is properly contained?” asked the archangel. “No leakage.”
“None,” Belphegor assured him. He pointed to a big red dial switch. “As long as the containment field remains switched on and that’s connected directly to a dedicated furnace. It’s failsafe and fool proof.”
“Well,” said Gabriel slowly and clearly prepared to backtrack if need be, “this seems to be an intelligent and prudent solution to the problem. I’m surprised you felt the need to hide it from us.”
“I have perhaps been a little paranoid,” demurred Belphegor. “If you have no issues with this system, we will gladly continue to use it.”
Rutspud made a tiny cough and nudged Joan. His eyes were looking pointedly at a needle gauge on the side of the tank.
“And what will you do when it’s full?” she asked.
“Pardon?” said Gabriel.
Joan stepped forward and away from Rutspud in case Belphegor’s suspicions suddenly fell on him. “This system has been running since the heating crisis,” she said. “Two or three years have passed in the world above and yet…” She approached the gauge. “It looks like your tank is nearly full.”
“We can build another,” said Belphegor.
“Not much of a solution,” she suggested.
“It would only be an interim until a more permanent storage solution can be perfected.”
“And what kind of solution would that be?” said Thomas.
Belphegor grumbled bitterly. “This is not yet perfected but I suppose a small demonstration can be given. Rutspud, the triple-valve compressor unit please.”
Rutspud picked up a bulky contraption of metal and glass and carried it over to Belphegor where the two of them attached it to an outlet valve at the base of the tank. Belphegor flicked a succession of switches, opened a valve and cranked a handle. The contraption groaned and hummed.
“Sin is a malleable substance,” Belphegor explained, “and can be compressed to a thousandth of its original volume. In a solid state we can store up to eleven point one terapeccados in one cubic metre, a block that would have a sin decay half-life of approximately ten years.”
“Words,” said Thomas. “It’s all just words. And not even that.”
The device on the side of the tank gave a hiss and a pop and a cigar-shaped pellet of shimmering blackness dropped out. Belphegor caught it deftly. The attachment began to groan once more, working on another.
Belphegor held the pellet up, weighed it. “Several megapeccados there, perhaps.”
St Thomas reached out to touch it but Belphegor drew back.
“Careful. This thing is pure sin. Demonkind are immune to it – we are unable to sin or be sinned upon – but if a human, dead or alive, were to touch it…” He shook his head. “Our method is, as I say, not yet perfected.”
“So, it is dangerous?” said Gabriel.
“But can be stored in this form until it has exhausted itself and dissipated.”
“Stored here?” said Joan.
“No,” said Belphegor decisively. “I believe I have made it clear that our energy ecosystem is fragile and this lump of sin, even in this solid and physical form, is an unbalancing factor but I believe there are a number of deep caverns on earth where waste such as this could be easily stored and have minimal effect –”
“Earth?” blurted Thomas. “You would put that lump of evil on earth?”
“There are many abandoned mines – deep mines – which the humans will only fill in. This will be safe if placed at such depths. Or perhaps dropped into the deepest parts of the ocean.”
Joan’s grasp of the realities of the situation were slim but her mind couldn’t help but wonder what monstrous terrors might be created when blocks of
sin came into contact with the giant creatures of the deep.
“No, no, no,” said Gabriel. “That will not do! That will not do!”
“It is not an ideal solution…” began Belphegor reasonably.
“Better Hell burn and destroy itself a million times over than let that happen!”
“Yes!” spat Belphegor, angrily. “That’s the attitude I expect from the Celestial City! Let others suffer for your short-sightedness!”
The contraption on the side of the tank produced another hiss and pop and another pellet dropped out onto the floor.
“Turn it off!” yelled Gabriel. He ran forward, flicked off every switch, pulled down every lever and turned every knob he could reach from on to off.
“Not that –” called Belphegor but Joan could see it was too late.
A little red emergency light in the ceiling, more jaunty that alarming in this Hellish cavern, began to spin.
The tank and all the surrounding apparatus was now entirely silent and Joan suspected that wasn’t a good thing.
“What happened?” said Gabriel.
Belphegor’s huge raisin-like face was screwed up in such an expression of malevolent annoyance that Joan thought it might burst.
“You turned off the containment field,” hissed Belphegor in a fierce whisper.
“What?”
He jabbed a finger at the red dial switch Gabriel had turned off. “The field that keeps it all contained.”
“Oh, right,” said the archangel, reached over and rotated it back to on. “There.”
“That won’t do any good! We now have to reconnect the dedicated furnace and that’s in another part of the fortress!”
“Will that take long?”
“Who knows?” spat Belphegor. “Our only hope is that we can get it done before Boris realises that the prison gate is open and its free to leave.”
“‘It’? It’s just stuff. Energy. It’s not a living thing.”
“I’m glad you know because I’ve never had to deal with a mountain of uncontained sin before!”
“You said it was fool proof!”
“Yeah? But I clearly didn’t make it angel proof!”