by Heide Goody
“Yes,” said Belphegor and gestured casually to a bank of wall screens on which various uploaded web videos played. “We have been granted certain colourful insights into your adventures. I think we will need a detailed report.”
“Of course, boss,” said Rutspud.
“And,” Belphegor continued heavily, “you might both want to think about which elements to embellish and which to draw a silent veil over. Our counterparts in the Celestial City are expecting us presently.”
Joan gave him a sceptical look. “We’re not in trouble, are we?”
She noticed the demon lord’s eyes flick just for a moment to the giant metal tank.
“Who are we to know the minds of Heaven?” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Clovenhoof sat at his presidential desk, an afternoon glass of Lambrini by his left hand, a covered silver platter by his right hand and the paperwork of office in front of him. The silver platter was supposed to have contained Milo Finn-Frouer’s latest attempt to recreate a crispy pancake. What it had contained was a scrap of paper on which the words ‘I am a pancake’ had been scrawled in a mysterious substance which, on closer tasting, had turned out to be chocolate sauce. Clovenhoof suspected that Milo was a broken man and might have to be taken to the shop to be repaired.
Clovenhoof wasn’t overly concerned. He was luxuriating in the success of his recent appearances before the faithful. On the giant view screens around the nation, a montage of highlights from services over the past week was playing on a loop.
Some unseen minion had been tasked with ironing the morning papers for him. It was a tip that Maldon Ferret had mentioned, and Clovenhoof loved it. He rapidly extended the instruction to include all of his post and any flat meals he ate (freshly ironed pizza leftovers from the night before was a taste sensation), and he was currently working his way through a pristine pile of paperwork.
“Do I want to go on the Graham Norton show?” he asked Ben.
“Find out who the other guests are,” suggested Ben without looking up from his screen. “That might influence your decision.”
“Good shout, Kitchen,” said Clovenhoof. He pressed a button on the voice memo recorder. “Graham Norton show. I’ll do it if there are hot women there.”
Ben sighed. “That’s not quite what I meant.”
Clovenhoof shrugged. “How’s the Bible re-write coming?”
“Not bad, not bad. We’ve researched and included Nerys’s lineage back for the last one thousand years.”
“Have you?” said the Archbishop, who was having her nails painted while her Yorkshire terrier was having his claws done to match.
“In the hope of lending your position some regal and religious credibility. We’ve set ourselves an achievement goal of getting back to St David. If we’re really lucky, we might get to King Arthur or even Joseph of Arimathea.”
“Wow. And I’m descended from them?”
“Um,” said Ben. “Beyond a certain point, tracing your family tree is less of a science and more of a… a creative endeavour.”
“And who is this Joseph of Arimathea?”
“Legend says he brought the infant Christ to England. Legend says.”
“Yo, choir!” called Clovenhoof. “Give me some Jerusalem.”
As the beatboxing barbershop singers launched into a powerful “And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England’s mountains green?”, Clovenhoof added to it with funky cries of “Yes, he did!”
“I’m trying to work out a way of demonstrating that Joseph of Arimathea, instead of going to Glastonbury, actually came here to Hooflandia,” said Ben.
“Oh, that’s clever,” said Nerys.
“I think we can actually do whatever we like with the narrative. The Bible has such an unreliable narrator, we could probably get away with anything. It’s just such a mammoth undertaking.”
“Well, what do you need?” said Clovenhoof. “The resources of a nation are at your disposal.”
“Oh, it’s okay really,” said Ben. “It occurred to me that the original Christian Bible had many authors and so I took it as read that it would be okay for me to bring other helpers on board with the rewrite.”
“Who did you invite?”
“The internet. I tweeted about re-writing the scriptures and we’ve had an absolutely massive response. Seriously, you could fill ten volumes with the suggestions we’ve had for the Dawkins Bible.”
“The Dawkins Bible?”
“It picked up the name along the way. I think it sort of got hijacked by angry atheists who have serious Jesus issues and the name’s sort of stuck. I quite like it,” said Ben. “They have been very keen to point out some of the factual problems in the old Bible.”
“Like what?” said Nerys.
Ben flicked through his notes. “What came through very strongly in one of the discussion threads was that there weren’t enough dinosaurs in the Bible.”
“Not enough dinosaurs?”
“No. Actually, there’s none.”
“Not true,” said Clovenhoof. “Genesis one twenty-four.”
Ben hurriedly searched through the King James Bible. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth… blah, blah… creeping things and beasts of the earth.”
“There,” said Clovenhoof. “Beasts of the earth.”
“That just means animals.”
“And dinosaurs aren’t animals? Anyway, there’s other references. There’s behemoths and leviathans and dragons all over the place.”
Ben was clearly unconvinced. “Okay, okay. But then there’s other stuff. There’s no mention of the Big Bang.”
“Let there be light!” declared Clovenhoof grandly.
Ben grumbled and rummaged through his notes. “Okay, what about this one? In the Bible it makes reference to a cauldron or something that was ten cubits across and thirty cubits round.”
“So?”
“Pi!”
“No thanks, I’m full,” said Clovenhoof, which wasn’t true because the word ‘I am a pancake’ whether written in chocolate sauce or not was hardly filling.
“If that verse is true then pi would equal three but we all know it’s three point one four something something something.”
Clovenhoof laughed. “Your people are getting their knickers in a twist over a decimal point. What kind of people are they?”
“Angry atheists,” said Ben. “Speaking of which Richard Dawkins’ publisher has already been in touch to tell us they will sue if we call it the Dawkins Bible.”
“Tell them I look forward to it.”
“I think the big question we need to address is what guidance this new Bible should be offering. What commandments should we give?”
“Better out than in?” suggested Clovenhoof.
“Equal pay for women?” put in Nerys.
“He who smelt it dealt it?”
“Please,” said Ben. “Something a bit more serious.”
Clovenhoof shrugged. “Then you are looking at the wrong mofo, Ben. People aren’t going to pay attention to them anyway so just stick any old rules in it.”
Clovenhoof saw Ben’s eyes flick to the complicated landscapes and boards of The Game which still held pride of place on the table.
“Any rules?”
With demons to guide her, the journey from the flood-ruined lower levels of the Fortress of Nameless Dread to the gates of Hell was much quicker than her journey to get there. The queues of damned souls waiting to get into Hell were much longer now and snaked from the checkpoint booths, back through the concrete archway and beyond the great rock where Cerberus would normally be chained.
“I must make a note to collect my dog on the way back,” said Belphegor.
The walk from Hell to Heaven was neither short nor long. Limbo was indefinable nothingness. To express anything in terms of time or distance was impossible. Nonetheless, approximately halfway between the inferno and paradise, they came to a hillock and a high-walled construction of marble and gold and dia
mante.
An angel stood on the hillock throwing disco shapes in a twinkly spotlight of his own creation.
“Eltiel!” called Joan and ran up to greet him.
The angel did a final super-tight spin and then gave Joan a kiss on each cheek.
“Well, look at you!” he declared. “Earth does not agree with you, does it?”
Joan considered the paintball stains on herself and her general state of poor appearance. “It wasn’t a holiday, Eltiel,” she said. She nodded towards the gated community for the Celestial City’s less desirable residents. “How have they been?”
“It’s been Hell,” said the angel. “Cruel and unusual doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
Rutspud scampered down the hill to the gates.
“They’re open!” he said. “We locked these gates. They could only be opened if one of the Celestial City’s committee wanted to open them. That was the point, Eltiel! We were locking them in.”
The angel strolled over. “Oh, but you didn’t hear the noises they were making! They were so distressed, so unhappy. Anyone with a heart would have been touched by their plight. I relented. I opened the gate.”
Rutspud spun around. “Where did they go? Did you take them back to the City. Are they wandering Limbo?”
Eltiel pointed through the gate.
“They’re all still in there, demon. I opened the gate. I called to them. I went to speak to them. Not one of them was willing to leave.”
Rutspud frowned.
Joan cautiously made her way through the gate. Rutspud was soon beside her.
“Careful,” called Eltiel. “They’re armed.”
Joan wasn’t sure what she had expected to find in there. What would happen if you gave people everything they had ever wanted? What would happen if you left the greedy and entitled in a wish-factory wonderland? Part of her had expected to find a ruin – palm trees in flames, furniture overturned, beauty spots a mess of wine bottles, party food and gore. Initially though it looked like very little had changed. Everything was still clean and tidy except…
“Where is everyone?” she said.
“Vanished?” said Rutspud. “Disappeared up their own arses?”
They came down to the edge of a swimming pool. This had definitely changed. There were towels over all of the sun loungers. Not only that, there were obstructing iron bars and padlocks and coils of barbed wire over all of the sun loungers and weird sensory devices on the top with rotating heads and red laser eyes. Strange though this was, it was not the weirdest aspect of the pool.
Joan crouched and rang her fingers through the pool water, except it wasn’t.
“It’s liquid gold,” she said, feeling its weight and pressure against her fingertips. “Pleasantly warm, liquid gold. It would be very hard to swim in it.”
Rutspud tapped one of the security-chained sun loungers. Amid great whirring, metal arms sporting multi-barrelled spinning guns sprang up and targeted Rutspud.
“STEP AWAY FROM THE SUN LOUNGER. YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO COMPLY.”
“Oh, poop,” said Rutspud, stepped back and in doing so nudged another lounger. Further automated weapons popped up.
“BACK AWAY FROM THE SUN LOUNGER OR I WILL OPEN FIRE.”
The first sun lounger swung its weaponry towards the second.
“STEP AWAY FROM THE SUN LOUNGER. YOU HAVE FIFTEEN SECONDS TO COMPLY.”
“BACK AWAY,” retorted the second.
“We ought to move,” said Joan.
Her leg knocked another sun lounger as they hurried away. It unfurled something that looked very much like a rocket launcher.
“DO NOT TOUCH ME OR I WILL RETALIATE!” it declared.
The first two loungers swung their guns to the third lounger and then back to each other. For no visible reason, a fourth and a fifth lounger joined in.
“THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY,” one declared. “I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DEFEND MYSELF.”
“YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO COMPLY.”
“BACK AWAY!”
“RETALIATE!”
Joan and Rutspud leapt over a short trellis wall into an open air restaurant and found shelter behind a carved stone urn just as the firefight began. It was brutal, loud and short. When the last bangs and pings had died down they looked over the now bullet-pocked urn. The smoke slowly cleared but it was impossible to say which of the shattered piles of plastic and metal had been the victor in the conflict. Scraps of beach towel floated briefly on the golden pool before disappearing below the surface.
“Do you have a reservation?” said voice behind them. It was a painfully posh voice, like it belonged to a person so uptight they spent every moment clenching every muscle in their body.
Joan turned. A ghostly waiter figure stood before them.
“What the hell?” said Rutspud.
“A shade,” said Joan. “A mindless servant created by a wish.”
“I asked, do you have a reservation, mademoiselle? Sir?”
Joan stood. The restaurant terrace was filled with tables laid out for an evening meal. There were candles stuck into wine bottles on every table. Their rosy glow created a pleasing warmth in the dusky light that hung over this particular area. Ghostly waiting staff moved back and forth with bottles of sparkling wine and baskets of fresh bread. There were no diners in the restaurant.
“Do we need a reservation?” she said.
“This is an exclusive restaurant,” said the shade, “and residents have the right to determine who is not permitted entry.” He waved his little leather-bound folder at them. “If your name is not down, you are not allowed in.”
Joan could see the page inside the waiter’s folder. It was entirely blank.
“No, no, it’s fine,” she said, pulling Rutspud away. “We were just leaving.”
“As I thought,” said the shade and went about its business.
“This place is creepy weird,” said Rutspud. “And I live in Hell.”
They crossed a headache-inducingly twee bridge across a pond through which koi carp the size of whales threshed against each other in their attempts to claim a breathable space in which to exist.
A voice called from above. “Hey! Boy!”
Joan and Rutspud looked up. There was no sign of the speaker among the barricaded windows of the surrounding mansions. A rifle barrel waggled at them between the golden slats of a shutter.
“Hey, boy! Come up here!”
“When he says ‘boy’,” said Rutspud, “do you think he’s talking to you or me?”
“Either way, we should be offended,” said Joan.
The two of them cautiously made their way round to the ground floor entrance of the mansion in question.
Rutspud rapped on the door. Joan made a conscious decision not to draw her sword and hoped she wouldn’t regret it.
“Hang on!” said the man.
There was a long sequence of bolts being drawn and locks turned. There was a strange clinking clatter.
“Hang on,” said the man again.
More clinking and clattering and the door inched open. A small landslide of sparkling gems tumbled through the gap and onto the doorstep.
“Don’t mind the diamonds,” said the man. “Just climb over, what.”
Joan pushed herself through the gap and onto a layer of beautiful fine-cut diamonds that must have filled the room to a depth of two or three feet. Rutspud squeezed in after her. When the man let go of the door, the weight of gems forced it closed again.
“There,” said the man.
It was Claymore Ferret. Lord Claymore Ferret. It would have been easy to say he looked terrible but that wouldn’t have been true. He had the glow of eternal youth in his face, the teeth and hair of a pampered film star and the finest clothes Joan had ever seen outside of France. And yet there was a look in his eyes – not a tiredness around them; no, this was a man who eternally felt he had just had eight hours of quality sleep – but a look in his eyes, a pleading, desperate, quivering madness in the cor
e of his soul.
“What do you make of this, eh?” he said, a hunting rifle over the crook of his arm. “Bloody disgrace, isn’t it? Knew we couldn’t trust you continental types to organise it.”
“What appears to be the matter, Mr Ferret?” said Joan.
“That’s Lord Ferret to you, girlie.”
“Not to split hairs, Claymore,” said Rutspud, “but your son, Maldon, is the current Lord Ferret, although I should imagine he’ll be putting his peerage on eBay any day now to try and recoup some of his horrific debts.”
“Christ,” said Claymore and waded through the sea of jewels to reach a drinks cabinet. “What’s the young pillock done now?”
“That would be hard to say,” said Rutspud, “without using the words ‘gambled it all away’ and ‘massive sex scandal.’”
Claymore made himself a large whiskey from a full decanter which stayed full even after he had poured a quarter of it into a glass.
“Boy’s a blasted fool!” snarled Ferret Senior. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Nothing,” said Joan. “Maldon Ferret makes his own mistakes and will have to pay for them like anyone else.”
“I meant about this!” Claymore thrust his arms out at the jewel-filled house.
“You want us to get rid of the diamonds?” said Joan.
“No. Of course not. Do you have any idea how much each of these is worth?” He picked one up, the size of a tangerine. “Got to be millions, right? Never accuse Claymore Ferret of squandering his wealth, huh.”
“It makes it sort of difficult to move around the house,” said Rutspud who had managed to clamber on top of the diamond layer in a spread out and precarious crouch.
“You tell me where else I should put them!” demanded Claymore.
“You could put them in the cellar?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Think? No. I assume you’ve used the cellar for something else.”