The Book of Doom

by Barry Hutchison

  It swept by in a gust of wind and a whiff of diesel. Behind his mirrored lenses, the Monk’s eyes scanned for any sign of the boy, but Zac was nowhere to be seen – not on the road, not on the pavement...

  The bus. The Monk turned his head, following the vehicle as it spluttered away from him. A black-clad figure stood at the back windscreen. Zac smiled and waved. The Monk pulled the gun from within his robe, but by the time he took aim, the bus was round a corner and out of range.

  “H-help!” came a shaky voice from inside the wreckage of the taxi. “Help, I... I need help!”

  The Monk didn’t look round. “Yeah, yeah. You know what, sweetheart?” he said quietly. “You an’ me both.”

  AC GLANCED OVER his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been followed, then slipped into his house through the back door. He closed the door and turned the key without a sound, then jumped as the kitchen light clicked on.

  “Zac?”

  “Granddad, it’s you,” Zac breathed. He looked at the old man standing in the doorway in his striped pyjamas. He held a green and blue stress ball in one hand, squeezing it gently between his fingers. “What are you doing up?” Zac asked.

  His grandfather, Phillip, passed the stress ball from one hand to the other and back again. “I was hungry,” he said. “Or... thirsty? I forget which. Where have you been?”

  Zac crossed to the window and drew the blinds. “Working, Granddad, remember?”

  “Until three in the morning?” Phillip asked. “Who eats hamburgers at three in the morning? I hope they paid you overtime.”

  “Yeah, well...”

  “I mean, eating hamburgers at three in the morning. They need their heads examined.”

  “It takes all sorts, Granddad,” said Zac, not meeting the old man’s eye. He took a glass from the draining board and filled it with water. “Here, have this.”

  Phillip frowned. “What for?”

  “You’re thirsty.”

  “Am I?” He took the glass and gulped down some of the water. “Oh, yes, so I was.” He licked his cracked lips. “Catriona’s very worried. Very worried.”

  “Is she?” Zac asked. He glanced past his granddad into the darkened hallway, checking for any sign of movement. “What’s she worried about?”

  “Oh, everything. You know what Catriona’s like!”

  Zac filled himself a glass from the tap and sipped on it. The coppery tang of blood swirled around inside his mouth. “Well, no, not really,” he said. “Who’s Catriona?”

  Phillip paused, his own glass halfway to his lips. “Catriona? She’s...” His eyes seemed to dim as he struggled to remember. He squeezed hard on his stress ball. “You know. Catriona.”

  “Oh, you mean Catriona. Of course. Now I remember,” lied Zac. “Yeah, she’s a worrier, that one.”

  A relieved smile lit up Phillip’s face. “Catriona,” he laughed. “Fancy not remembering Catriona. She’s asked me to help her out, but, I mean, what can I do?”

  “You can do lots of things, Granddad,” Zac said, patting the old man on the shoulder, “but I think it’s time Catriona learned to stand on her own two feet. Stop worrying about her. She’ll be fine.”

  Whoever she is, Zac added silently. Phillip spoke about people like Catriona all the time. People who snuck into his head at all hours of the day and night and told him their problems. People who, as far as Zac could tell, didn’t actually exist.

  “Where have you been all night?” Phillip asked.

  “Work, Granddad. I told you, remember?”

  “Is that a bruise?” Phillip said, peering at his grandson. Zac pulled back before the old man could get a closer look at his face.

  “Oh, yeah, I walked into a door,” Zac said. “Nothing serious. Anyway... I’m going to head to bed. Will you be OK?”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Phillip, putting his glass in the sink. “If I can’t sleep I might do some reading. Or listen to music. Or I might even watch some television.”

  “We don’t have a TV, Granddad.”

  “Oh, don’t we? Well, bang goes that idea. Maybe I’ll just feed the goldfish, if I can get it to stay still for long enough. Anyway, I’ll be fine. You go. You go. You need your beauty sleep.”

  Phillip shooed Zac out into the hallway, where an orange shape was zipping around inside a glass bowl. They both watched it for a few moments, moving so fast it was almost a blur of speed. Phillip had owned the same goldfish for as long as Zac could remember. In all that time, Zac had never once seen it stop moving.

  Zac tore his eyes away from the darting fish and made for the stairs. He stopped to check the front door was locked, then turned to his granddad. “Listen, if anyone comes looking for me... I mean, if anyone calls round...”

  Phillip frowned. “Expecting someone? At this time of night?”

  “No. Maybe. Probably. If anyone comes to the door, tell them I’m not in.”

  “Are you heading out?”

  “No, I’m going to sleep, so tell them I’m not in.”

  “You’re not in. Got it,” said Phillip. “Where is it you’re going?”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Granddad. Just sleeping, remember?”

  “Sleeping. Right.” The old man tapped a finger against the side of his nose. “Say no more.”

  “You be OK?”

  “I’ll be fine, Zac,” said Phillip. “Which is more than I can say for poor Bill.”

  Zac made an admirable attempt to contain a sigh. “Bill?”

  “Lost his job, apparently. In a lot of financial trouble. He doesn’t know what to do.” Phillip shook his head sadly. “Keeps asking me to sort it out for him, as if I can do anything about that kind of thing.”

  For a moment, Phillip seemed to drift away. He gazed into space, a fog descending behind his eyes. Eventually, he gave himself a shake and looked over to his grandson.

  “Now, where were you going again?”

  “Nowhere, Granddad,” said Zac. He smiled weakly. “I’m just going to go bed.”

  “Right you are!” said Phillip, and he turned back to the goldfish bowl as Zac bounded up the stairs.

  The door to Zac’s bedroom was old and heavy. He closed it firmly and pushed his bookcase in front of it, just to make sure he wasn’t disturbed. He needed time to think, to figure out who the Monk was, and why he was trying to kill him.

  He sat on the end of his bed, facing the window. The adrenaline that had been pumping through him for the past few hours was wearing off, and he could now feel all the cuts and bruises he’d earned on his way through Geneva’s front door.

  A car. With a single punch, the Monk had flipped a moving car. It had to be a trick of some kind. It had to be. Like the birthmark on his hand, which had vanished again by the time he’d got home. Those things weren’t possible.

  He looked through the window, along the leafy suburban street lit up orange by the glow of the streetlights. For a moment he thought he saw something glint on a roof at the other end of the street – a reflection of moonlight off a lens, maybe. He jumped up and quickly drew the curtains, suddenly unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched.

  He was agitated. That was new. He never got agitated. Whatever the situation, he was a master at keeping his cool.

  But a car. The Monk had flipped a car.

  “Get a grip,” he told himself. “You’re being paranoid.”

  He turned from the window. A figure in brown stood against the wall near the corner of the room.

  “See, kid?” said the Monk. “Told ya I was stealthy.”

  The roar of a gunshot echoed through the house.

  AC OPENED HIS eyes and instinctively grabbed for his stomach, where he expected the gunshot wound to be. He had felt the impact of the bullet hitting him. The brief but overwhelming agony as it had torn up his insides.

  The last thing he remembered before the world went dark was the Monk’s voice, soft in his ear: “Don’t worry, kid, I’ll stick your body in the cupboard.”

  A
nd now...

  And now...

  Nothing. There was no pain. No blood. He hadn’t yet sat up, but he could tell he wasn’t in his bedroom, and he wasn’t in the cupboard, either. He was... somewhere else, lying on his back with something soft and fluffy below him.

  “It’s awake,” said a gruff voice.

  “He’s awake, Michael, please,” said another. It sounded friendlier than the first, but with the sort of upper-class lilt that Zac had never been keen on.

  The smiling face of a youngish-looking man leaned over him. “Why, hello there,” the face said. “You must be Zac.”

  Zac tried to leap to his feet, but the ground was squishy, like plumped-up pillows, and it took him longer than he would have liked. He stared, first at his surroundings – bright blue sky, fluffy white ground, with an imposing gate standing off to one side – and then at the two men he had heard talking.

  They looked similar, and yet different, like twins whose lives had taken them down very different paths.

  The one who’d spoken to him – the smiling one – was still smiling. He had long blond hair, hanging in curls down to his shoulders, and eyes that sparkled a brilliant shade of electric blue. He wore a long white... Zac hesitated to use the word dress, but he couldn’t think of a more appropriate one. It was plain in design, and reached all the way down to the floor. The sleeves looked to be a little on the long side, with gaping cuffs that hung several centimetres from the man’s wrists.

  The other man – Michael, was it? – was facially very similar. Same blue eyes, same blond hair, but there the likeness ended.

  Instead of a gown, Michael was dressed like a Roman soldier. He wore a tunic of red leather, decorated with golden trim. On top of this was a breastplate, also the colour of gold. It wasn’t real gold, Zac guessed, because real gold would make useless armour. It would be steel, painted to look like gold. Unless the wearer had no intention of actually using it in battle, of course.

  A sword hung in its scabbard at Michael’s side. The first man appeared to carry no weapon, although he could’ve probably hidden a bazooka up those sleeves if he’d wanted to.

  “Please don’t be alarmed,” he said. “My name is Gabriel. It’s a pleasure to—”

  “What’s going on? Where’s the Monk? Where am I?”

  “The Monk is on Earth,” said Gabriel. “You, on the other hand, are not.”

  Zac’s gaze went between the two men. “What? What do you mean I’m not on Earth? What are you talking about?”

  “I thought you said it was smart,” Michael grunted. “Doesn’t seem so smart to me.”

  “He is smart. He’s just a little... jet-lagged,” said Gabriel, not taking his eye off Zac, and not lowering that smile. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it, Zac? Take a moment. Look around, and then tell me where you are.”

  For a long time, Zac kept watching Gabriel. The man’s voice, like his smile, was as insincere as a politician on the campaign trail. Despite Michael’s sword and demeanour, something about Gabriel made Zac suspect he was the one to watch out for.

  “Go on,” Gabriel urged. “Look. See.”

  Zac shifted his eyes to the left. The swirling mist that covered the ground stretched out in all directions, extending far beyond the limits of his vision. There were no hills, no buildings, just an endless plane of wispy white, and a dome of bright blue sky overhead.

  Then there was the gate. It was, Zac realised, actually two gates, fastened together in the middle. They stood fifteen metres high, an elaborate tangle of silver and gold. There was no fence, just the gates themselves, standing proud and alone.

  And a small desk. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but there it was, right at the foot of one of the gateposts. It was fashioned from dark oak, with faded gold-leaf gilding decorating the carved legs.

  A rectangle of cardboard had been propped up on the desktop. On it, someone had written:

  GONE TO LUNCH

  BACK IN 20 MINS

  “Well?” asked Gabriel, seamlessly shifting his smile from friendly to encouraging. “Any ideas?”

  “I’m in a coma,” Zac said. “That’s the only explanation.”

  Michael made a sound like the growl of a wild animal. “This is a waste of time.”

  Gabriel’s smile faltered, just briefly. “No, you’re not in a coma, Zac. Would you like to try again?”

  “Not really,” Zac said, with a shrug. “Because the only other explanation is that I’m dead, and this is Heaven.”

  “Aha!” began Gabriel.

  “And I don’t believe in Heaven.”

  “Oh.” Gabriel’s smile fell away completely, but rallied well and came back wider than ever. “Well, believe in it or not, that’s exactly where you are. Or on the outskirts, at least.”

  “The outskirts?”

  “Yes. Heaven itself is beyond the gates. This –” he gestured around them – “is sort of the suburbs. Outer Heaven, if you will.”

  “No,” said Zac. “It’s not. That isn’t possible.”

  “The Monk tells us you evaded him. Twice,” said Gabriel. “Congratulations. That’s two more than anyone else ever has.”

  “His boss,” Zac muttered. “He said his boss wanted to see me.”

  “Correct. That would be me,” said Gabriel. Michael gave another growl. “Or rather, us. We have need of your... talents.”

  “So you had me killed? Couldn’t you have, I don’t know, phoned or something?”

  Gabriel ran a hand through his golden locks. “I suppose, when you put it like that, it does sound a touch drastic.”

  Zac shook his head. “No, this is all nonsense. I’m dreaming. This can’t be real.”

  “I assure you it is real, Zac,” Gabriel insisted. “I’m afraid you have to face facts, my boy. You are dead.”

  “You killed me,” said Zac quietly. “You had me killed.” He took a sudden step towards Gabriel, his hands balling into fists. Gabriel didn’t flinch.

  There was a sound like silk tearing. A sudden pressure across Zac’s throat stopped him moving any further. The blade of the sword felt uncomfortably warm against his skin.

  “Make another move and I slice,” Michael warned.

  “What difference does it make if I’m already dead?”

  “Oh, there are many worse things than death,” Gabriel said, still smiling. “I can think of at least a hundred off the top of my head.” His smile widened and his blue eyes seemed to darken. “Would you care to pick a number?”

  He waited a moment, until he was sure his point had been understood, before gesturing to Michael to step back. The man in the golden armour hesitated, then removed the blade from Zac’s throat and slid it back into its sheath.

  “And the whole fate-worse-than-death issue is precisely why we wanted to talk to you, Zac,” Gabriel continued. “You see, what with all your exploits – stealing and whatnot – I’m afraid you’ve booked yourself a place in Hell.”

  Zac rubbed his throat. He could still feel the heat where the sword had touched his skin. “Hell?”

  “Yes. You know, fire and brimstone; demons poking spikes into places you’d really rather they didn’t; etcetera, etcetera. It’s one of the Four Suggestions, see? ‘Thou Probably Shouldn’t Steal’.”

  “Four Suggestions? What are you talking about?”

  “The Four Suggestions,” Gabriel said again, as if that explained everything. When he saw it didn’t, he continued: “That God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai.”

  “You mean the Ten Commandments?”

  “Ah, of course, I forgot. You’re a human,” said Gabriel, giving himself a tap on the forehead. “That was an error in translation. Much of the Bible’s spot-on, of course, but sometimes the authors took a few liberties, or just missed the meaning completely. God doesn’t give out commandments. What would be the point in that? Ordering people around all the time? No, it’s not His style. He’s quite laid-back, really.”

  “But He does make suggestions,” Michael added. “And if
you don’t follow them, you’ll burn for ever in the fires of Hell.”

  “Doesn’t sound very laid-back,” said Zac.

  “I said He was quite laid-back,” Gabriel replied. “I didn’t say He was a pushover.”

  “If I’m going to Hell, how come I’m here?”

  “We decided to intervene,” Gabriel told him. “We snatched you away before Hell could claim you. We wanted to offer you a chance to—”

  A smaller gate, built into the frame of the larger one, swung open. A man in a grey robe, with matching grey hair and beard, strolled through, whistling below his breath. He had a newspaper under one arm and carried a takeaway coffee cup.

  The man walked towards the desk, then stopped when he realised he wasn’t alone.

  “Oh, erm, hello,” he said. “I just popped out for a quick bite to eat. Wasn’t gone long.” He looked from Gabriel to Michael. “Nothing’s happened, has it?”

  “Nothing you need concern yourself with, Peter,” said Gabriel, turning the full force of his smile on the newcomer. “Be a good chap and give us another five minutes, would you?”

  The man in grey looked like he couldn’t believe his luck. “Well, I suppose I could find some paperwork to be getting on with,” he said, playing it cool. “Filing an’ that.”

  “Wonderful. That would be splendid,” said Gabriel.

  Peter backtracked towards the gate he’d come through. “Right you are, then. I’ll just go and eat some... I mean file some, um...”

  Michael growled and fixed Peter with a furious glare. Peter’s face reddened and his brow became shiny with sweat. “I’ll go file some... some... sandwiches,” he blurted, then he bit his lip.

  “Very good, Peter,” said Gabriel. “Peace be with you.”

  “Peace be with you,” said Peter, bowing ever so slightly. “Peace be with you, Michael.”

  Michael growled again. Peter gave a final bow, darted through the gate, and let it close behind him. Zac couldn’t see the man through the gaps in the metalwork, even though common sense said he should be able to.

  “So, that was Saint Peter?” he asked.

  Gabriel gave an approving nod. “For a non-believer, you know a lot.”