by Heide Goody
He then slowly and gracefully fell off his deer and onto the ground next to Ben.
Joan shook her head.
“Ben, look after him.”
“Sure,” said Ben, took the bottle from Hubertus’s unresisting hand and, after giving the label a cursory glance, took a swig.
Joan looked to the deer. The glowing cross between its antlers reflected as a fierce and entirely un-deer-like intelligence in its eyes.
“You willing to help me bring this monster to heel?”
Hirsch bowed solemnly and turned slightly to offer her its back. Joan swung herself up, gathered the grenades closely and tried to arrange the invisibility cloak over herself and her mount.
“This might just work.”
Hirsch bleated. Joan didn’t understand deer. It was possibly just as well.
Clovenhoof used the tail-end of the bus as a knuckleduster with which to pound Boris’s face until there was no bus left with which to pound.
“I had myself a nice little country here once, you know!” he panted, exhausted. “A palace, a church, a nudist beach and an adventure playground for the little kiddywinks. Fun for all the family. Now, look what you’ve done!”
Boris fumbled and dropped the keel and, taking anything it could, gathered up a fistful of masonry to smash over Clovenhoof’s face.
“I’ll tear it down!” Boris panted, equally exhausted. “Burn it all to a cinder! The Almighty made a mistake in giving this world to the humans! It needs remaking! In my image!”
“That was my plan!” screamed Clovenhoof. “You can’t nick my plan!”
“Stealing’s a speciality of mine!”
Clovenhoof felt a new sensation. It had been a day for new sensations. This one didn’t hurt but it felt weird and unpleasant. It reminded him, if anything, of the evening he’d spent with a powerful vacuum cleaner, a catering-size tub of margarine and no clothes on. Like that evening, he suspected this sensation might start pleasurably enough but might end with pain, shock and a trip to the hospital. Something was tugging at his insides, the very core of his being and it was tugging in… that direction.
Two dots stood in the ruined heart of Hooflandia, both with hands held high. One was a white-haired beardy-weirdy. The other was swinging her crook around like it was some magical rod of power.
“No…” said Boris a look of equal discomfort and surprise on its face.
“They’re praying,” said Clovenhoof.
“Forgiving us…”
“Sucking out our…”
Alarmed, Clovenhoof clutched at himself, at the air around him, as though he could drag the power-giving sin back in but it was no use. Boris was faring no better, his physical body unspooling in streamers of sin, a cloud of unholy matter unfolding around him.
“What’s going on down there?” asked PJ.
“Nothing good,” said Rutspud. “They’re trying to cast the sin out of Boris. But he’s all sin. There’s nothing for the sin to be cast out of. It’s all just going to…”
He stood, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. He jumped up and down and waved his hands but no one was paying attention. The boys of the Boldmere Ponies display team crept forward to watch.
“I’ve got to stop them before they do something really stupid,” said Rutspud.
“What’s that?” said Spartacus, pointing.
A galloping deer with an armour-plated saint on its back had just winked into visibility as Joan threw off the cloak.
“Something really stupid,” said Rutspud.
He could see her raising herself up on Hirsch’s back, swing a bandolier round her head several times. He could see the grenades and something else. Bottles? Rutspud understood.
“Really, really stupid. Time to duck and cover again, boys!”
Clovenhoof could feel himself shrinking, becoming diminished again. As Boris flailed about with his own personal problems, something flew up and wrapped itself around Boris’s neck. The sin monster raised a hand to touch it. The initial explosion blasted Boris’s head clean off and then, as the other grenades detonated, all became fire and steam and a cloud of vaporised sin.
Clovenhoof dropped to the ground with a thump, reduced to his regular, human size.
The base of the moat/wall was wreathed in smoke and rapidly dying fire.
There was no sign of Boris.
Clovenhoof patted himself down to check three things: that he wasn’t on fire, that nothing was broken and that the departing sin hadn’t taken more than its fair share in his trouser department.
“Easy come, easy go,” he shrugged.
Across the hazy landscape, he saw the ruins of his beautiful church. There was virtually no sign of his vanished flock.
“They would have worshipped us like gods,” he sighed.
“Then we’ve averted two disasters today,” said Joan, approaching carefully over the rubble, a deer with a glowing cross between its antlers following closely behind.
“Did you do that?” said Clovenhoof, pointing at the spot where Boris had just stood.
“Might have done,” said Joan and then tutted as she discovered a dent in her armour. “Come with me. I think there’s some explaining to be done.”
She helped Clovenhoof up and the three of them made towards the knot of people in front of the presidential residence.
Clovenhoof looked at the deer and nudged Joan. “Hey, you’ll like this one. What do you call a deer with no eyes?”
Joan looked at him. “There’s a deer with no eyes?”
“No. It’s a joke.”
She shook her head disapprovingly. “That’s not very funny. Poor thing. Where was this deer?”
“Forget it,” said Clovenhoof. He nodded to the deer. “Nice hooves, mate.”
It was an eclectic bunch waiting for them outside the Boldmere Oak. Florence was mustering those elements of the Hooflandian army that were still present and mobile, all the while waving away the fuss that her uncle, Prime Minister Lennox, was making over her. Nerys was busily recounting her part in the beast’s downfall to Ben, Festering Ken and a comatose saint in hunting garb. The Archangel Gabriel was deep in a collective moan-fest with any angels who would listen.
“I’ll never hear the end of this from the Miracle Authorisation Team,” he whined. “We’ve not had a large scale event like this since the Milagre do Sol event in Portugal. If there’s television footage, I might as well hand in my horn.”
“No one will want that horn after you’ve touched it,” said Clovenhoof.
“Regard, here comes the architect of all our woes,” said the angel.
“Me? I’m just a humble demagogue, trying to pull a religious scam with some light tax avoidance on the side. I want to know who I send the bill for repairs to. I expect you angels to fix this whole thing up as good as new.”
“We could just retcon the whole thing,” said an angel with more than the usual amount of glitz on his robes.
“And what does that mean, Eltiel?” said Gabriel.
“Rewind. Reset. Localised of course but give this town the full Bobby-Ewing-in-the-shower treatment.”
“I have no idea what you’re on about.”
“Some of us could definitely do with a therapeutic mindwipe,” said Nerys making unsubtle head jerks towards the utterly perplexed Ben.
The rear door of the Boldmere Oak flew open and a grubby and bedraggled chef staggered out.
“Great news, boss!” said Milo Finn-Frouer.
“I heard,” said Clovenhoof. “The angels are going to fix things up and the Guy Upstairs is going to foot the bill.”
“We agreed no such thing,” said Gabriel.
“I have it,” said Milo, holding out a wide plate on which sat a dozen crescents of steaming, golden deliciousness.
“My crispy pancakes?” said Clovenhoof.
“Yes, boss.”
“As good as they used to be?”
“Cooked to the original recipe, boss, using ingredients that are no longer c
ommercially available.”
The chef was in tears as he spoke, bubbles of emotional spittle forming on his lips.
“They smell good,” said Ben.
“Good?” Milo’s voice was a whisper of choked passion. “May I never smell another thing again. May I cut off my fingers to stop me creating such sublime food ever again.”
Clovenhoof looked down and did a quick finger count to make sure none of Milo’s digits had made it into the finished product.
“I guess I’d best try them then,” he said.
“Please, boss. Please.” Milo dropped to his knees, head bowed, and held the plate aloft. “Say you love them or I will die.”
Clovenhoof wiggled his fingers and debated which of the seriously tasty looking parcels he should try first.
“No!” came a distant cry.
“No?” said Clovenhoof.
He looked round. Rutspud was running and tumbling across the ground towards them, a trail of Boldmere Ponies (all now apparently pony-less) trailing in his wake.
“What’s wrong with him?” said Gabriel.
“He’s heard there’s crispy pancakes on offer,” said Clovenhoof. “That chap has a taste for the finer things in life.”
“He’s shouting something,” said Nerys.
“Sounds like ‘Morris,’” said Ben. “Does anyone know a Morris?”
“Has it got something to do with all this black stuff?” said Festering Ken, pointing at the rivulets of sin pouring down the hill towards then.
“Boris,” said Joan, drawing her sword.
“But I killed it!” said Nerys.
“Dispersed it, not killed it.”
“I don’t think I’m up for a second bout,” said Clovenhoof.
“Get the humans inside,” said Gabriel.
“Devils and crispy pancakes first!” said Clovenhoof, took Milo’s offering and darted inside.
He ran through the presidential reception hall and up the stairs to the presidential suite, clutching his pancakes tightly. Oh, these smelled right. They smelled perfect. As spinach was to Popeye, as Scooby Snacks to Scooby Doo, surely these were the real source of his earthly power…
Maybe just one nibble would give him the industrially-processed, cheesy and hammy energy he needed to fight that blob of sin once more…
“Yes.”
In fact, running off to restore his strength so he could leap back into the fray wasn’t the act of cowardice it might appear to be…
“Exactly.”
Just one bite…
He slid into his throne and picked up the nearest pancake. Thrilling, piquant aroma of yumminess!
A huge hand came down and dashed the presidential balcony to pieces.
“Just a minute!” he called.
Cracks appeared in the corners of the room and the entire wall was pulled away with the ease of child ripping open a birthday present.
“No!” yelled Clovenhoof. “I’m having a private moment here.”
Boris waded into the collapsing building, his torso ploughing through the floor between ground and upper storey.
“We’re not finished, little man,” grinned the sin thing.
“Final meal for the condemned man?” suggested Clovenhoof.
Boris’s brow furrowed cruelly, and he struck down with his hand. Clovenhoof whisked away his plate as titanic fingertips cut through the games table sending boards and playing pieces flying.
“What the Hell?” snapped Clovenhoof. “I was winning The Game!”
“There’s only one winner here,” leered Boris. “Evil always triumphs.”
“Screw you!” Clovenhoof pouted. “I’m the devil. I’m the king of gamblers. I can’t be beaten!”
Boris laughed. “I’m every underhand move, every shady deal. I am the fixing of odds, the playing of markets. I am every trick in the book rolled into one body. I can beat you at any game!”
“Any game?” said Clovenhoof.
“Name it.”
“And the loser?”
“Pulverised,” smiled Boris. “Pummelled into oblivion.”
Clovenhoof bit the end off his crispy pancake.
PART FOUR – MEMORIES OF HOOFLANDIA
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Four-hundred-and-something Chester Road.
Boldmere.
Sutton Coldfield.
The house was built something like a hundred years ago, back in a time when people were shorter but ceilings were inexplicably higher. In recent years, it had been the home of a man, a woman and a devil. The man and the devil lived in the first-floor flats. The woman lived on the second floor with her pet dog, Twinkle. The ground floor, however, had more recently become home to a fourth resident.
Jeremy Clovenhoof, Nerys Thomas and Ben Kitchen stood outside the door to flat 1b. Each of them unlocked and removed their padlocks and, with a bit of jostling for first place, the three of them entered the flat.
“Games night!” said Clovenhoof in greetings to the room.
“I’ve been waiting,” said Boris sulkily.
“The rules state that following agreed breaks, The Game can only continue at times convenient to all players,” said Clovenhoof. “That’s right isn’t it?”
“It is,” agreed Ben.
A table stood in the centre of the room. And the table had a board game at its centre. Other game boards sprouted off on every side.
In the history rewriting and reality bending that Heaven had undertaken to tidy up the horrid mess of the ‘Hooflandia Incident’, nearly everything of the past few months had been undone and replaced with a more pedestrian series of events. Clovenhoof had argued that to just press a massive reset button on the event was lazy thinking and insulting to everyone involved, that it meant that those many people who had rightly received their just punishments and rewards were going to go unpunished and unrewarded, that no one would have had the chance to learn from this exciting episode. But Gabriel didn’t care and had insisted that he wasn’t going to depart this plane without erasing everything he considered to be ‘moronically implausible’. That, apparently, applied to a great many things, not limited to Hooflandia, its church and army, the PrayPal app and Clovenhoof’s billions.
Clovenhoof didn’t really miss the money. He was never motivated by wealth, only by what it could achieve, and he’d generally found that the same things could be achieved through belligerence, bravado and a loose attitude towards rules.
Two of the few things to survive the reality-edit were Nerys (who threatened to rip Gabriel’s wings off if he so much as glanced at her memories) and The Game. The black cardboard box of committee-developed, computer-refined, Bible-encompassing gaming fun they now played with was currently the only version in existence. Ben was keen to develop it further and perhaps start a crowdfunder campaign to get it put into full production, but he was even more keen to do a full play-test first, so the world would have to wait for a few years yet.
“Initiating start-up routine,” intoned Nerys.
As she began to count the pieces, Ben got up to prepare their games night drinks. “Lambrini for Jeremy, Chardonnay for Nerys and Boris…?”
“Just a small sherry for me,” said the sin creature.
“Small sherry for Boris, of course.”
Ben placed the drinks in front of each of the players and sat down with his own cider and black. He leaned over to Nerys.
“Remind me,” he said, as he said so often these days, “Boris is…?”
“An old acquaintance of Jeremy’s,” said Nerys. “From the old days.”
“Right. Right. And we lock him in here when we leave because…?”
“He likes it that way,” said Nerys. “All he wants to do is play The Game.”
“Right. Right.”
“He just wants to win, really.”
“It’s nice to have ambition, I suppose.” Ben opened the rules book. “Rule number one: no one is allowed to know all the rules of The Game. Rule number two: no one is allowed to know if they’re
winning or not until The Game ends. Rule number three: The Game ends when you are dead.”
He passed the dice to Clovenhoof. “Shall we begin?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Anette Cleaver collapsed in her front hallway, hands pressed together in humble apology.
“Please, spirits! Please, forgive me!”
“Well, that will be between you and your husband, lady!” said Joan hotly. “If I was him –”
“Which you’re not,” Rutspud added helpfully.
“I wouldn’t let you back in the house, let alone the marital bed! How can you even kiss him after you’ve used you mouth to –”
“Stand in for a men’s urinal,” said Rutspud, again helpfully.
“In an absolute mockery of the most holy of all Christian sacraments!”
“I’ll change! I’ll change!” wailed the Head of Communications for the Birmingham Diocese.
“And if I hear you’ve gone to another of Maldon Ferret’s sordid sex parties –”
“But I haven’t! I haven’t!”
“Yes, true, but you might have –”
“In a deleted alternate reality in which your scandal indirectly led to the Church of England being sold to Satan,” said Rutspud.
The tearful woman sniffed and gave them a quizzical look.
“Just be good!” snapped Joan, waving her sword around in a generally threatening manner. “Or else!”
“There will be a pit in my place with your name on it,” said Rutspud.
Joan continued to fume. Rutspud coughed politely and then surreptitiously dragged Joan out by the back of her chainmail shirt. He slammed the front door behind them.
“And breathe,” said Rutspud. “Deep, relaxing breaths.”
Joan breathed. But if there were relaxing breaths to be had, she couldn’t find them.
“I had to ride in a police car with that woman and her…”
“Wet-playmate?” suggested Rutspud. He woke his tablet. “We’re done.”
“Done?” said Joan.
“The list. We’ve delivered thirty-four dire warnings from the afterlife. Church leaders, captains of industry. It’s the least we could do considering they’ve all been given a second chance to screw their lives up. Ha! That moment when I showed Maldon Ferret a vision of the Pit of Big Cats with Assault Rifles!”