by Heide Goody
“Pwhelli is not a name I have heard our Lord use before,” said Pigcrack reaching for the document, “and whatever a library card is, it does not sound as though it carries sufficient authority –”
There was a brief electric crackle as Pigcrack’s hand touched the stranger and a sound that was something like foom, and Pigcrack was gone without a trace. A faint glimmer hung in the air for a fraction of a second, as though all the light particles which had been bouncing off the demon were now confused as to what to do and were just hanging around in embarrassment.
“Well, I didn’t expect that,” said Jessephendor, as he pushed the hood back off his head.
“Brother Stephen!” said Potter, rushing forward. “I recognised Jessie’s waggy tail.”
She bent to fuss the collie who had appeared from beneath the hem of Stephen’s habit.
“Gnarrgh hazargh!” crowed Mama-Na, slapping him on the back.
“Good work, young man,” said Nightingale. “It appears that you have some startling powers down here.”
“Powers?” said Stephen.
“My goodness, the man doesn’t know what he can do!” exclaimed Wilde. “A holy man, in Hell. It appears that you can dispatch these demons with a single touch.”
“Perhaps it is like the meeting of matter and antimatter,” said Tesla. “A scientific concept I toyed with in another life.”
“I’d warrant there are more deserving of a hearty handshake from you!” said Boudicca.
Lickspear stepped back in fear. These were words that he did understand and he wasn’t sure whether he was ready to be dispatched.
“Not this one,” chipped in Potter. “He’s Rutspud’s … servant. Friend of a sort. Possibly pet.”
Lickspear nodded vigorously.
“We need to find Rutspud,” said Bernhardt. “What are we waiting for?”
“We don’t know where he is, young lady,” said Whitehouse.
“Yes, we do,” said Stephen. “He’s in the Fortress of Nameless Dread. But first, I’m to make sure that you’re all safe. We need to get you to the R&D department, into the clock that Belphegor’s making for St Peter. I’m then going to go rescue Rutspud.”
“Mnn-ock?” said Mama-Na.
“Rutspud reckons you could all live in there quite nicely as long as one of you pops out every hour to announce the time. You might need to dress up as a cuckoo, that’s all.”
“Now, Stephen,” said Cartland. “You can’t honestly imagine that we’d sit aside like cowards while you took on the fortress alone?”
There was a discreet woof from Jessie.
“Sorry, not quite alone,” acknowledged Cartland.
Scabass was really getting into the swing of it.
“Peel the skin from his tongue,” he said. “Slowly, of course, making him chew a lemon as you go.”
Peter nodded.
“Are you getting this, Nero?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, carry on, Scabass.”
“Those eyes of his …”
Scabass suppressed a shudder as he recalled the many times that Rutspud had secretly mocked him. He always pretended to be so polite, so subservient, but it was his big googly eyes that gave him away.
“Ye—ees?” said Peter.
“Inject spiders’ eggs into his eyeballs!” Scabass exclaimed with a burst of inspiration. “Make sure they are good, viable ones from a big, fat species that are certain to wriggle, hatch and emerge in the most unpleasant way possible.” He cackled. “Just imagine the look on his face when he sees them pouring down his face.”
Nero paused in his writing.
“How will he see them if the spiders have … popped his eyeballs?”
“Good point, Nero,” said Scabass. “Spiders in one eye. And then peel the skin from his torso!” Scabass realised that his voice was getting louder, but he didn’t care. “Peel it slowly, just a few inches at a time. Plant the seeds of vigorous green weeds in the flesh and, and then introduce a family of guinea pigs. Yes! The cute furriness that all demons abhor, combined with the torment of them feeding upon the emerging greenery will be perfect!”
Scabass pictured the scene and sighed with happiness.
“There should be some audio-visual aspect. Obviously, you will remove his eyelids so that he is compelled to watch whatever we want. What do we want? Who’s that man in the Pit of Bastards who made all those horribly cute films?”
“I know the one,” said Lord Peter. “All twee cartoons with singing animals.”
“Ach!” Scabass groaned as he laughed. “That one with the princess on helium who gets all the animals to sing while she tidies the house for the homunculus miners. I hear demons have vomited themselves inside out after watching that.”
Peter nodded.
“And is that what you wish to be done?”
“I am a huge believer in personal accountability and responsibility, Lord. These punishments are no less than he deserves.”
“Well said. I will make certain that all of these delightful torments are made available as you suggest. I must congratulate you upon your thoroughness. You will go to room four hundred at the Institute of Unflinching Obedience and present Nero’s notes together with this letter of instruction. You can be certain that this punishment will be carried out to the letter.”
Rutspud sat in a puddle at the bottom of a cell that was designed to generate slime. He’d seen Belphegor’s original design for the engine that crushed waste from elsewhere in Hell and manufactured a green-tinted slurry that was pumped through tiny vents at the top of the walls to provide a constant cascade of foul-smelling effluent.
The fingers of Rutspud’s one remaining hand paddled in the supposed puddle of slime. The overheating crisis had clearly interfered with the system, or evaporated much of the slime before arrival, as the puddle he sat in was semi-solid and steaming gently. It was surprisingly like one of those potted noodle snacks Stephen had offered him. Admittedly, the potted noodles smelled better.
“Oh, Stephen.”
Rutspud hoped against hope (particularly tough given that, in no sense at all, was he allowed to pray) that Stephen had got his note and had done something – anything! – to help his gang. Certainly, it wouldn’t be long before he himself would be subjected to all of the hideous torments that Scabass was certain to demand, but if he could at least save his damned friends from the same fate …
“You’re a changed demon,” he said to himself. “Or gone mad. Talking to yourself is definitely a sign of madness. Thinking potted noodles smell better than this gloop is another pretty big clue.”
He tried to distract his mind from his evident descent into lunacy. One thing that certainly occupied his thoughts was the annoying mystery of how come he had heard Lewis humming the same tune that Father Eustace sang.
“Where could they both have heard it?”
They were not people he expected to move in the same circles, and the song that Eustace sang seemed to celebrate decidedly Hellish themes. What could Eustace and Lewis possibly have in common? He considered Lugtrout, the missing R&D demon.
“Maybe,” he nodded to himself.
He wondered if it was possible that Lugtrout had left Hell by going up the staircase to the monastery. Could Father Eustace have met Lugtrout while he was out and about? If so, where was Lugtrout now?
Rutspud sat bolt upright, the realisation hitting him like a slap.
“Oh, Satan’s balls!” he exclaimed loudly.
At that moment, the door to his cell swung open.
“Surprise!” said Stephen.
“Father Eustace?” Manfred said gently, as he and Bastian entered his room. “Father Eustace, we have an important matter that we need to discuss with you.”
They crossed the room in the agreed non-threatening pincer movement, making no sudden moves to spook the unpredictable abbot. He no longer spent entire days in the wardrobe, but he did like to nestle in the space between the bed and the wall. He stared up from the
re, eyes swivelling between Manfred and Bastian.
“Bath time?” he asked.
“No,” said Bastian. “We have questions.”
“About who you are,” said Manfred.
“Father Eustace isn’t in right now,” said the abbot. “Please leave a message after the tone.”
“We know that your name is not really Eustace Pike,” said Manfred, “or, at least, that you’re not the same Eustace Pike we were expecting.”
“Beep,” said the abbot.
“Big fat bloke with a red beard, apparently,” said Bastian.
“You have proven to be a unique and entertaining member of our community,” said Manfred gently, “but my colleague and I lack understanding. We’d be very interested to know your story.”
“And we’d also like to know what happened to the real Eustace Pike,” said Bastian.
“If you can tell us,” added Manfred.
Father Eustace eyed them both and then his shoulders sagged. He stood up and shuffled past them towards the door, indicating that they should follow with a brief flick of his hand.
“Beard,” he said, sadly.
Rutspud looked on in astonishment, as his whole gang appeared, accompanied by Stephen and that shifty canine beast, Jessie.
Stephen gave him a huge grin, and Jessie trotted up to him, presenting his missing arm with a wag of her tail.
“We’ve come to rescue you!” hollered Boudicca. “By God, it feels good to be a warrior again!”
“We were just in the nick of time, by the looks of it. This cell has the most appalling décor,” sniffed Cartland.
“Smells like Pot Noodle,” said Stephen.
“I thought that,” said Rutspud.
“I’ve no idea why slime must always be green,” said Cartland. “They should really try it in pink one of these days.”
“I don’t understand,” said Rutspud. “How on earth did you manage to find me and, even more incredibly, why did nobody stop you?”
“Finding you was the easy part,” said Tesla. “I had the schematic of the tunnel system from when we connected up the pipes. It was a simple matter to plot a course to the Fortress of Nameless Dread.”
“Yes, but it must have been miles coming through that way!” said Rutspud.
“I made us a chariot!” yelled Boudicca. “Stole a trolley, harnessed up the imps. Gave everyone the ride of their bloody lives!”
“That’s another coin for the jar,” said Whitehouse.
“Yes, it most certainly is,” drawled Wilde. “She said 'lives' for goodness' sake. We haven't had those for a while, have we now?”
“Surely you met some of the guards, though? The fortress has those brutish scrowfrogs on duty. You know, the ones with the hands of a crab, the hide of a sea scorpion, and the brains of a cage fighter,” said Rutspud, shaking his head at the recollection of the mindlessly violent creatures which were favoured in the more secure locations of Hell. “How in Hell did you get past them?”
“Bernhardt and I pretended to be Lord Peter and his oafish secretary,” said Wilde. “Bluffed our way past.”
“You did?” Rutspud was clearly unconvinced. “Isn’t, er, one of you a woman?”
“We’re professionals, Rutspud!” chided Bernhardt.
“And scrowfrogs have the brains of a cage fighter,” said Tesla.
“A scrowfrog sold me a spare ear one time,” said Lickspear. “Turned out to be a rock. One of my favourite ears ever, that one.”
Rutspud got down on his hands and knees and stared at Stephen’s feet.
“This is interesting.”
The stone floor of the cell was heated to something slightly lower than the boiling point of water, making this one of the coolest areas of Hell by far.
“You should be screaming in agony,” said Rutspud.
He put his hand on the stone by Stephen’s feet. It was cool to the touch. Actually cool.
“How is this possible?”
“Some localised super-cooling process?” suggested Tesla.
“Maybe Hell can’t hurt me,” said Stephen.
Rutspud shook his head and got to his feet.
“You've all put yourselves in danger to save me,” he said. “Stephen is a monk. He clearly gets special training or something but, the rest of you, this was stupid.”
“I wouldn't say we exactly get trained for this sort of thing,” said Stephen. “I’m actually a little freaked out, to be honest.”
“We’re a team, remember?” Potter said.
“You make that sound like a good thing,” said Rutspud, puzzled. “Whereas we all know there’s no ‘we’ in TEAM. There’s ME and then there’s the MEAT, all mangled up.”
“But you’ve got it mangled up all wrong,” said Potter. “Because you’re also our MATE.” She smiled at him primly. “If you're going to insist upon tortuous and twee anagrams, you'll find I'm rather good at them.”
“We really are a team, Rutspud,” said Nightingale.
“Like Malvern Girls’ College under-15s hockey squad,” said Cartland.
“Like a great horde of Iceni clansmen,” noted Boudicca.
“Whatever,” said Stephen.
Rutspud beamed round at them, and was about to say something when a cry went up from Shipton.
“By the stars, scrowfrogs approach! We must hasten from this place ’ere our doom arrive!”
“Wow, she really can see the future,” said Stephen.
“No, she has exceptional hearing. She notices things before other people,” said Potter.
Rutspud heard it then, the slapping sound made by a great many oversized feet coming towards them at a run.
“Come on!” he yelled to everyone.
Scabass strutted through the Institute of Unflinching Obedience and gazed at the portraits of famous demons that lined the walls. These were demons who had earned the admiration of their peers for their dedication to the art of torment. He stopped and read the caption below a particularly intriguing picture.
Flayshard demonstrates a level of tenacity to be proud of. She holds position without wavering, and allows her fingernails to grow into the victim's eyeballs.
Scabass nodded with approval. He was definitely in the right place.
He found room four hundred and knocked on the door.
“Come,” came a voice of quiet command.
Scabass entered the room and stopped in surprise.
“Flayshard?” he asked.
The demoness nodded.
“I am deeply honoured that you have been assigned my case,” he said, bowing low. “I was just admiring your portrait outside.”
“Take a seat,” Flayshard reached out for the paperwork that Scabass held.
She read the letter of instruction carefully, as Scabass gazed around at the tools of her trade, arrayed on the walls. Knives, pliers, scrapers and wrenches were immaculately maintained and all within easy reach. He sighed with satisfaction, knowing that a true professional would be taking care of Rutspud.
“These torments are most creative,” murmured Flayshard. Her head was an inverted jellyfish, glistening poisonous fronds streaming upwards and away from her wound-gash of a mouth.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said proudly.
Flayshard pressed a button and restraints snapped around Scabass’s wrists and ankles.
“Er … what are you doing?” he asked.
“What am I doing?” Flayshard brandished the sheaf of paper and blinked in surprise. Her eyes were bubbles of cold bioluminescence beneath her jelly skin. “I thought you wrote this list.”
“I did,” said Scabass. “I mean, I dictated it.”
“Then I believe you know what's in this list of torments.”
“But they're not for me!” protested Scabass, a metallic squeak entering his voice. “They’re for Rutspud!”
Flayshard read from the paperwork.
“The person responsible for the transgressions listed is to receive these torments.” She looked up at Scabass
. “And I quote from yourself directly here: ‘This is my department and I am responsible for everything that goes on here.’ And quoted again here: ‘I am a huge believer in personal accountability and responsibility. These punishments are no less than he deserves.’”
“No!” cried Scabass. “Wait!”
“But this is a nice touch,” said Flayshard. “Lord Peter says it's regrettable that you were unable to manage Rutspud, but is impressed that you are taking your punishment so seriously.”
Scabass was speechless. His mouth worked but he could find no words to convey the wrongness of the situation. He thrashed at his restraints, his iron sinews straining but unable to make the slightest difference.
“Shall we begin?” said Flayshard, pressing another button. “We've got lots to get through.” She flicked through the paperwork and giggled. “Lots and lots and lots.”
Scabass’s chair tilted backwards.
The ceiling was mirrored, enabling the victim in the chair to see everything that was being done to them. Scabass saw a mask of anguish and despair on his own face.
“Now,” said Flayshard softly, “I, too, am a big believer in personal accountability and responsibility. We must do things right. So, I shall start with some rudimentary gougings and scorchings and will ask you to rate them on an agony scale from one to merciful Hell no more, I beg you. Super. Ready?”
They had clearly taken a wrong turning somewhere.
“What’s this place?” asked Stephen.
“Hell’s call centre.”
There was a roar from some distance behind them.
“You. Not. Lord. Peter,” called a deep and foul voice.
Rutspud had been dragged to the cells by the scrowfrogs on his arrival at the Fortress of Nameless Dread and had found them thoroughly intimidating. Then again, they were six times taller, wider and generally rounder than he was. He realised now, however, that an agile demon or, indeed, a human could outrun them with relative ease. What they had on their side was the sheer force of numbers and, of course, the brutish violence that they were extremely happy to mete out if they caught anybody.
Unfortunately, the call centre was wholly open plan, with no hiding place at all.