by Heide Goody
Across the Plains of Perdition stood the Fortress of Nameless Dread and, bizarrely, it appeared to be on fire. Smoke – no, steam – was pouring from every window and door. It was as though the building was being pumped full of water.
“Bad idea,” Hodshift grunted to himself. “The structural tensions of that building are designed to resist external forces, not internal forces. You pump that place full of water and soon enough it will –”
The Fortress of Nameless Dread exploded, cracking apart along three sides and disintegrating into an explosion of water and steam.
“That’s what’ll happen,” said Hodshift.
The destruction of the fortress unleashed the water on the circles of Hell at large. A great, green, steamy sea swelled up, bloomed in mass, and raced outwards in all directions along the Plains of Perdition.
Hodshift’s elevated position gave him a grandstand view of the approaching tsunami. He was a well-trained engineer and he knew what would happen when untold gallons of water came into contact with the superheated furnace beneath his feet. He pulled his hard hat down over his ears and whimpered gently.
The wardrobe rocked with an explosion that lit up the sea beneath them.
“What the Hell was that?” squealed Stephen.
“Bad things,” said Rutspud, clinging onto the wardrobe edge with all his might. They had completely given up on the idea of steering. The waters were still rising, although more smoothly now they were away from the source. Wherever the seawater met Hell’s white hot surfaces, the water boiled away, cooling all as it progressed. The air was thick with steam.
“Reminds me of a Turkish Bath in Soho,” said Wilde conversationally, and then looked at the others. “Prettier company that time, though.”
Tantalus, cursed founder of the House of Atreas, who murdered his own son and served him up for a banquet, continued to pluck apples off his ruined tree and complain about it to anyone within earshot.
“Oh! And another! All the apples I ever wanted! Would you like another apple, Tantalus? Yes, please! Well, have one, then! I will! Thanks!”
Of course, there was no one around to listen. Anyone who could move away from him had already done so. Trapped in his dried up pool, Tantalus had no one to complain to but himself.
“Actually, I don’t really fancy apples today,” he said. “You can get bored of one thing, can’t you?”
He looked down at his knees and thought about the pool which he had never been able to reach to drink from and which had now disappeared completely.
“On reflection, I wouldn’t say no to a drink. Just a bit of water.”
A hot wind blasted him across the face. Tantalus looked up.
Across the distance, something dark and huge and foam-topped approached at speed.
“I mean, just a little bit,” he said.
A large swell from behind threatened to tip the wardrobe over. Slurping, sucking whirlpools pulled them this way and that. A massive shape moved through the fog above them.
“It’s the Ziz!” called out Lickspear. “Coo-Cah! Coo-Cah!”
Rutspud craned his neck to see past a leg larger than mountains to the underside of the largest bird in all creation.
“Can you get it to pick us up and take us to the steps?” he yelled above the sound of the bird-induced storm.
“Say what? I thought I might get it to pick you up and take you to the steps!” Lickspear yelled back. “Coo-Cah! Coo-Cah!”
A head larger than any sailing ship came round at them.
“Is that a bird?” said Stephen faintly.
“Er, it might be best if we all get up this end of the wardrobe,” Rutspud said to the others. “I can see us being crushed otherwise.”
In the event, the Ziz scooped the entire wardrobe up inside its beak and the gang were plunged into darkness. Someone sat heavily on Rutspud in the confusion. Jessie’s bark echoed against distant walls. The smell of the Ziz's last meal hung about its cavernous mouth.
“What is that vile stench?” said Whitehouse.
“Rotting whale, at a guess,” said Rutspud.
Hell is vast but not infinite and, within a surprisingly short time, the seas of Atlantis had found their way down through every circle. Furnaces exploded, lava fields solidified, and fires were extinguished. Boiling realms of superheated plasma became a sticky mess of melted slag and puddles. No corner was untouched by the waters, no sizzling stone uncooled. Much of the water evaporated, cooled against the ceilings of Hell and then fell as rain.
It rained in Hell.
A crack of light appeared in the darkness and then, suddenly, the Ziz’s beak was open and the wardrobe was sliding down a broad velvet tongue and onto a smooth outcropping of rock. Stephen took a good long moment to collect his thoughts, realised his thoughts were an impossible and disgusting mish-mash of images and incidents and not worth collecting at all, and rolled out of the wardrobe onto the ground.
Jessie bounded out and licked his face. Stephen sighed. There was nothing like a damp dog to bring you back to some semblance of reality.
“You and I are going to need some serious therapy after this,” he told her.
Jessie sneezed and shook herself in solemn agreement.
Stephen looked about. They were on a wide ledge, set above a huge water-filled valley.
Wilde groaned as Rutspud helped him out of the wardrobe.
“Oh, look, Oscar Wilde’s coming out of the closet,” said Stephen, but apparently no one was willing or able to appreciate the joke. Even Jessie treated him to a blank stare.
“Suit yourselves,” he said.
In time, the waters receded. The wardrobe to Atlantis disgorged its last and, into Hell’s sizzling foundations, the waters slowly drained away.
Demons and damned who had been fused into carbonised lumps by the heat were now merely damp lumps, Hellish dioramas sculpted in charcoal. The Lake of Fire became, briefly, an actual lake with actual water in it. The Plains of Perdition were awash with rubble, confused demons, and even more confused sea-life which now found itself in a far from hospitable environment.
Among the ruins there sat a chair of torment and, clinging to it against the draining waters, a demoness with a wound for a mouth and jellyfish fronds for hair.
“Hmmmm,” she murmured reflectively. “That was certainly interesting, wasn’t it? Now, where were we up to?”
Scabass sat, stunned, in his chair.
A bedraggled shape flopped, rolled and moaned piteously to itself a short distance off.
“Ah, a lion,” said Flayshard.
The lion’s coat was soaked and, as it struggled to its feet, it coughed up a large wet furball. Flayshard strode across to help the creature up and gave it a long appraising look.
“Well, it appears that we're in luck,” she said, and used a pencil to make a tick on her sodden checklist. “Back to business, Scabass.”
The Ziz, with Lickspear on its back and offering incomprehensible directions, returned in time with other wardrobes and other refugees.
Wilde, Whitehouse, Shipton, Cartland, Mama-Na, Tesla, Nightingale, Potter, Bernhardt, Boudicca and Lewis were eventually stood alongside Rutspud, Stephen and Jessie in their place of temporary safety. The valley below was no longer an inland sea, but had drained to become a patchy bog through which demon and damned alike wandered in bewilderment.
“I think the over-heating crisis has been resolved,” suggested Tesla.
“It’s actually cold,” said Potter, happily hugging herself against the chill breeze.
“Yeah, I don’t like it,” said Rutspud.
“Too hot, too cold,” grinned Stephen. “You moan about the weather like a true Brit. Sure you don’t fancy moving upstairs permanently?”
Rutspud gave him a wry smile.
“Speaking of upstairs,” he said, “I think I recognise that doorway. If we can get down to there, we can find the stairs to St Cadfan’s.”
Thirteen bipeds followed the surefooted Jessie down the rock
y valley wall. Once reached, the doorway indeed led to a series of damp corridors and, at last, to a set of stairs that were an offence to mathematics and logic and possibly liable to induce seizures in a visually susceptible portion of society.
“You are coming up with us, aren’t you?” Stephen asked Rutspud, waving the eleven damned souls ahead.
“Oh, yes,” said the demon. “Until I’ve worked out what to do about this mess I’m in.”
Stephen trudged up stairs that still steamed lightly in the dissipating heat.
“I’m sure we’ll find some way for you to blend in,” he said.
Rutspud grunted in amusement.
“Oh, can’t see why not. I wouldn’t be the first.”
“Oh yes?” said Stephen, frowning.
“I worked it out when I was in that cell. Your Father Eustace knows a weird song that Lewis hums to himself all the time. One of them picked it up from the other somehow.”
“Well, maybe,” said Stephen.
“And your Father Eustace is kind of new on the island, isn’t he? Not really able to fit in?”
“You mean he’s crazy as a box of badgers? Absolutely.”
“And my predecessor in R&D –”
“Lugtrout.”
“Lugtrout, right. He went missing.”
Stephen’s stomach twisted. He found himself wondering if he had swallowed some sea water.
“So, you’re saying …”
“That’s right,” said Rutspud. “Lugtrout is hiding out in Father Eustace’s body. Can't say I blame him. Plenty of demons would do what he's done, given half a chance.”
Stephen’s innards gave a sudden and violent lurch. He groaned.
“What is it?” Rutspud asked.
“I feel a bit funny,” said Stephen. “Maybe I caught a tummy bug from some pit of pestilence or something.”
“The Pit of Pestilence doesn’t tend to dish out tummy bugs, mate. Anyway, we’re near the top.”
Stephen grimaced and continued upward.
“So, you’re saying Lugtrout has possessed Father Eustace?”
“Absolutely.”
Stephen thought about this.
“Nah. Even after everything I’ve seen, I can’t quite buy the concept of demonic possession.”
As Stephen’s foot touched the topmost stair, something stabbed through his guts.
“Good God!” he groaned and doubled over.
Rutspud’s hands were supporting him as he went down on the stone steps.
“A little help here,” the demon shouted.
“Nightingale!” shouted Boudicca.
“The man has been struck down by the flux!” wailed Shipton.
Stephen yelled out, stood straight again and arched his back as a fresh wave of agony tore through him. He had not known pain like it and was about to do his best to tell everyone that it was probably appendicitis, when a pair of talon-tipped claws pushed out through his stomach and his habit.
Stephen decided there and then that the best course of action was to scream, long and loud, and hope that context would make the details of his concerns obvious. Claws then arms and then a body that was surely bigger than Stephen’s slipped out from the wound and onto the stairs.
Vile and sinewy and slick with slime and ooze, the horned demon glared around, crouching, then it rose up to its full height.
“Ow!” said Stephen, falling back onto his bum, exhausted and surprised but no longer in pain. “That really hurt!”
Rutspud looked up at the demon that towered over him. Matte black scales covered its shoulders and arms, while an olive green carapace spoke of military engineering. Rutspud had heard rumours that demons had given up body parts to have weaponry and special equipment put in their place. This was apparently such a demon. He looked up at the face with sudden recognition.
“Treyvaw!”
“Trevor?” said Stephen.
“I am,” said the demon with an unpleasant grin, “and I've seen everything I need to.”
“What?”
“You're coming with me.”
The demon Treyvaw tucked Rutspud under his arm with ease and then turned his gaze on Stephen.
“Nice knowing you, kid, but it’s time I moved on.”
The demon flicked a claw in a line across the top of the staircase and it was gone. Simple as that, it was gone. Stephen thought that, for a moment, he saw Treyvaw and Rutspud shrinking away with impossible speed into the bowels of Hell, the staircase folding in upon itself as they went, a plaintive cry falling from Rutspud’s lips. But then the moment passed and it was all gone and Stephen was sat on a cold cellar floor, staring at a perfectly ordinary stone wall.
The entrance to Hell was no more.
Chapter 11 – The day of judgement
Between them, Boudicca and Mama-Na carried Stephen into the monastery library and, once Bernhardt had swept the books from the largest table, laid him down so Nightingale could tend to him. Despite his protests that he was physically whole, they did not let him up until she had inspected his wound.
“There’s nothing here,” she said, prodding Stephen’s pale belly through the massive rend in his habit.
“I told you,” he said. “I’m fine.”
And then he felt the weight of the world come down upon him because he was far from fine.
“It’s gone. The stairway is gone.”
“And we are on Earth,” said Cartland.
“Earth?” said Lewis.
Potter nodded.
“Does that mean we’re … free?” she suggested.
“But dead,” said Whitehouse.
“What is life?” said Tesla. “We move, we breathe, we think.”
“No,” said Whitehouse. “It won’t do, us shuffling round the earth like the walking dead from some Hammer horror.”
“We’ll fit right in,” said Wilde. “Trust me, half of London society is dead from the neck up.”
“But the stairway is gone,” said Stephen.
“And Rutspud is gone, too,” agreed Bernhardt.
“Fnn grrr Naff?” said Mama-Na.
“That? That was Treyvaw the punisher,” said Lewis.
“I have not seen his like before,” said Shipton.
Stephen frowned.
“No, but I’ve heard that name before.”
He swung his legs off the table, fetched the Big Book of Demons and turned back to a page he had read months before.
“’The demon-hunter, Treyvaw, is a general in the armies of Hell. He is tasked with bringing punishment to the punishers. In Hell, none shall go unscourged. Those devils who fail to deliver the most terrible of tortures to the damned will be taken to the furthest pit to suffer those torments they failed to inflict on others.’ Oh, no.”
“And he has Rutspud,” said Boudicca.
“But it came out of me,” said Stephen, dipping for a moment into hysteria. “That demon came out of me! The whole chest-burster thing!”
“Most strange,” said Shipton.
“What’s this?” said Potter and pointed at a footnote.
Stephen read.
“For … habitation? … no, possessions by Treyvaw see Periculosum Libro Puerorum. We’ve got that! I’ve seen that on the shelves.”
Seconds later, the slim battered volume was on the table. Stephen flicked through the pages.
“The black … candle summoning of Meridiana, if performed incorrectly, gives … entry? ... into the mortal plane for Treyvaw or any of the … brood? ... of Shandor.” He frowned. “That name does seem familiar.”
“Meridiana?” said Cartland.
“Meridiana,” said Shipton. “’Tis the succubus, the wanton hussy that tempted Pope Sylvester.”
Stephen’s face fell.
“Oh, poo!”
“Listen, mate,” said Rutspud, “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. I’m a demon of some influence.”
Treyvaw laughed. It was the kind of laugh that someone might learn from an intensive week-long trainin
g course entitled How To Laugh When There’s Nothing To Laugh At.
“I’ve spent months watching you, runt,” he said. “You’re a liar and a cheat. A fraudster and a manipulator who gets away with the most shameful behaviour by the skin of his teeth.”
Treyvaw repositioned Rutspud under his arm as he stepped out from the maintenance corridor and down a scree slope to the soggy ruins of the fourth circle of Hell.
“Months?” said Rutspud. “You’ve been hiding out in Stephen’s body for months?”
Treyvaw laughed again. He was getting his money’s worth from that course.
“My man Stephen and I have been together for …” – the demon made a sharp clicking noise while he thought – “ … nineteen years, three months and sixteen topside days.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I needed him,” said Treyvaw. “And he invited me in.”
Stephen spoke slowly and uncomfortably.
“Look, me and my friend Darren Pottersmore were sort of into the occult when we were teenagers.”
“Witches!” declared Shipton.
“No,” said Stephen. “We just used to read crappy horror novels, listen to a lot of heavy metal – Megadeth, Slayer, that kind of thing – and mess about with books of spells.”
“Sacrificing black cats at crossroads at midnight, that sort of thing?” suggested Wilde.
“Not really. We used to do it in Darren’s bedroom and his mum wouldn’t let me stay past nine at night and there certainly wasn’t any animal sacrifice, unless you count popping out for some KFC when I got my paper-round money. Anyway, we did once attempt to summon a succubus, this Meridiana. Darren had a picture of her, I remember it very clearly. We drew the circle on the bedroom floor, lit the candles and everything, and performed this chant Darren had found.”
“And?” said Bernhardt.
“Darren’s mum came in and interrupted us at the crucial moment.”
“She feared you were engaged in the devil’s work!” said Shipton.
“No, she was just bringing us some squash and Findus crispy pancakes.”