The Book of Daniel

by Mat Ridley

  I was so caught up in the spectacle of the battle unfolding around me that I didn’t notice the creature closing in on us until it was almost too late. The clouds of dust obscured its approach, only parting at the last moment to reveal the spiky black giant that had first locked eyes with mine across the battlefield. As it noticed me, its unsettling grin widened in recognition, and I somehow knew that it had deliberately made its way here, seeking me out. Its quarry at hand, the demon released the leg of the unfortunate corpse it had been dragging along behind it, flexed its claws, and stomped purposefully towards Harper and me. Its inky spines bristled as it approached, rattling against each other like hollow bones, and from somewhere deep within its chest issued a horrible, wolf-like growl.

  It felt as if I were frozen in terror, but by the time the monster had closed the gap and loomed above Harper and me, I had somehow manoeuvred myself to stand in front of her, sword raised in defiance. I cannot remember exactly how I came to be there like that; certainly every instinct screamed at me to run, to forget her, to let her take care of herself or leave her to the angels’ mercy. The demon’s presence was so overpowering, so terrifying, that I might even have felt the same way if it had been Jo that stood behind me instead of Harper.

  Smothering my urge to flee, I tried to think rationally instead. I remembered what Thomas had told me: that fear was exactly what these things, in all their many shapes, were designed to instil, and that faith was supposed to be the most effective weapon to use against them. The only problem with that was that my faith had been dead for years; but then, given the perilous nature of the moment, maybe the time was right to try to reanimate its corpse… before the monster in front of us saw to it that the rest of me was just as dead. I also recalled the rest of what Thomas had said, and self-consciously mumbled the first prayer I had done for years. In his exact words: what did I have to lose by trying? I simply prayed for courage, and got precisely the response I was expecting, which was nothing. I still felt terrified.

  My mind fumbled around for something else.

  I tried reasoning. Even though the battle had only just been joined, I had already seen with my own eyes the angels dispatch demon after demon. I had concrete evidence that they were more than capable of protecting us, and I was still fairly confident that I hadn’t been in Purgatory long enough yet to be judged and condemned like the poor souls who had just met their fate at the ends of the bull’s horns; so surely I could trust in the angels and have faith in them?

  It almost worked. But there was no sign of any angel nearby, which at that exact moment made them just about as dependable to me as God.

  O ye of little faith, indeed.

  I thought instead about what I stood to lose if I fled from the demon, and, of course, that made me think about Jo. I knew that if I ever did make it out of Purgatory alive, I would one day have to look her in the eyes as I explained my actions there on the battlefield—and if I abandoned Harper now, I didn’t think I’d be able to face doing that, not if I ever wanted Jo to still think of me as a protector. For no particular reason, I remembered a T-shirt she used to wear—sometimes with nothing else—with four block capital letters and a question mark on the front: “WWJD?”. “What would Jesus do?” The slogan was supposed to prompt Christians to think about the right way to behave when faced with tricky situations. I had no idea what Jesus would do in the situation I was facing right then, but I knew What Would Jo Do. No question mark.

  Better.

  I stood my ground.

  “Come on then, you fucker, let’s see if you dance as good as you look.”

  As a potential epitaph, I thought it sounded pretty good.

  Harper stepped up next to me as the demon closed in. “Chivalry is all very well, Dan, but you haven’t even bloodied your sword for the first time yet. You be careful. This wife of yours would kill me if I let you get devoured on your first day out.”

  She had a point, and even though my macho pride flinched, at the same time I was relieved that I wouldn’t be facing this thing down on my own. “Yeah, you don’t want to get on Jo’s wrong side. This thing would look like a pussycat in comparison. As they say, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “Believe it,” muttered Harper darkly, with a look to match. Even if I hadn’t already known about the murder in Harper’s history, I would still almost have felt sorry for the approaching demon.

  The shadow of the fiend fell across us, blotting out both the light and any further conversation. I looked around, hoping that perhaps some reinforcements were near at hand, but those few soldiers I could see were already engaged in skirmishes of their own. I had no idea where Abraham had gone—run off, eaten, maybe even taken up in a ball of blue light and spared this nightmare—but it was clear that Harper and I were on our own. Of the angels in which I had briefly considered placing my faith, there was still no sign. I felt no surprise, only a weary resignation.

  As the giant lurched towards us, its grin grew wider and wider, and I could sense the contempt streaming off of it. I certainly couldn’t blame it. The two swords that we brandished seemed woefully inadequate, toothpicks against an elephant, but I doubt I would have felt any more confident had we been driving a tank instead. The idea of turning and making a run for it skittered nervously through my mind again—after all, Harper seemed more than happy to take care of herself—but by that point, I knew it was too late.

  It was too late for anything but to fight.

  With its last stride, the demon raised one of its enormous fists into the air and swept it downwards like a wrecking ball. But it was an unexpectedly slow action, almost lazy, and Harper and I easily avoided it. There was a vague whiff of sulphur in its wake. The giant fist continued along its trajectory, spinning the demon around and gaining momentum for its next sweep. This time, Harper even managed to slice into the hand as it passed by, and her sword glowed blue as it bit into flesh, relishing the taste of evil. The monster quickly pulled its hand back, howling with pain, and I felt a surge of confidence; the demons were certainly terrifying, but if they were this frail, then surely we had nothing to be scared of!

  The demon’s eyes glowed in sympathy with Harper’s blade, as red as hot coals, radiating hate. I leapt forwards to press the advantage, eager to prove both to myself and to Harper—and maybe to God, too, if He was watching—that I could pull my weight out there on the battlefield. But the battle cry died in my throat when I heard Harper shouting behind me.

  “Dan, no! Don’t! It’s a trap!”

  The instant her warning was in the air, the demon made a miraculous recovery from its apparent injury, and the fist shot towards me again, faster than black lightning. There was a colossal thud as it plunged into the ground where I had been standing just a moment earlier; if it hadn’t been for Harper’s warning, the blow would have been deadly accurate. A shower of black spines rained over me, knocked loose from the demon’s arm by the force of the impact and hurled forwards like javelins by their momentum. I staggered away from the fist, too busy choking on dust and sulphur to try to avoid the missiles. All I could do was raise my arms protectively over my head and hope for the best as I felt them clattering off of my armour.

  Somehow—I was still too sceptical to call it a miracle—I managed to stumble back to Harper. I chanced a look over my shoulder, fully expecting to see the black giant right behind me, but instead it stood exactly where I had left it, its hateful, gleeful grin mocking my frantic escape. I wondered why it hadn’t come after me, but the knots in my stomach answered that question easily enough: it was all part of the game, to keep me as scared as possible. I grimly recalled my comment to Harper a few moments earlier, about this thing being like a pussycat. Of course, that’s only a reassurance if you’re the human bending down to stroke its fur, rather than the mouse struggling to flee with your life.

  Harper seemed to read my mind. “Pretty fucking scary, eh?” she said, without looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on the demon, trying to discern any i
ndications as to its next move. “It was the same for me the first time, too; I charged at the first Bloodhound I saw, thinking I was Superwoman, and very nearly ended up as dog food instead. If it wasn’t for Thomas watching over me, I’d have had a pretty damned short stay in Purgatory, and not in a good way, either. The angels certainly weren’t interested in saving my hide, even right from the start, despite what they tell you. And I’m not the only one abandoned like that, either. That’s another reason why Thomas and I help the new arrivals like you and Abraham. Helped, I mean.”

  I tried to steer her away from thoughts of Thomas. “Speaking of Abraham, did you see where he went?”

  “Somewhere over there,” she said, waving off to the left, “but we don’t really have any choice other than to trust him to the hands of the angels for now. Let’s worry about him after we’ve dealt with this guy.”

  “If you say so,” I said, dubiously. My brush with the demon’s fist had left a storm of emotions raging in my mind, but through them all, I still felt a pang of guilt that I had failed to keep my promise to Abraham, to help look after him. I felt the urge to run after him now, to try to find him before he fell foul of any danger, but it was obvious that the demon in front of us was not about to let me go free. It didn’t give the impression that dealing with it was going to be as trivial as Harper made it sound, either. “What’s it waiting for?”

  “It’s trying to psych us out. Or trying to psych you out, I should say. It doesn’t affect me so much anymore, but it can sense that you’re new, and it’s feasting on all the negative shit you’re going through right now.” As if to prove her point, the demon suddenly let rip with an enormous roar and bristled its spines, sending another shudder running down my own. “Mummy must never have told it not to play with its food.”

  I was amazed at how cool she seemed in the face of this monster, knowing full well what it was capable of and what would happen to her if she was killed. I didn’t think it was just a fatalistic reaction to Thomas’s departure—whether down to my medallion or not, she seemed to be doing a good job of burying that for the moment—but I also couldn’t believe that her attitude was entirely due to a confidence in her own abilities, especially in light of the angels’ abandonment of her. Whatever her reasons, I wasn’t convinced; but at the same time, Harper had experience on her side, and so following her lead, however inscrutable its foundation, made the most sense, and that meant squashing my fears and anxieties dead.

  Even as the thought occurred to me, it took on the sound of Thomas’s voice, and I knew it was the right thing to do. With a deep breath, I tried to slow my racing heart and concentrated on trying to be calm instead. The more I focussed on stemming my fear, the less certain the demon’s grin became, and I knew that my tactics were working. With that realisation, my fear ebbed further still. The demon roared again, trying to rekindle the flames of my fear, but the desperation of its ploy had the opposite effect. My confidence surged, and the demon shifted its weight uneasily from one foot to another, uncertain of its next move.

  I took advantage of the temporary standoff to steal a few glances at the other skirmishes being fought around us. To our left, a band of soldiers was engaged in bringing down a giant centipede of some kind. Every time it reared up to attack one member of the team, another bravely ducked under its legs to stab at its soft underbelly, each wound spewing out clots of thick green ichor which hissed acidically as they hit the ground. Another nearby group was not faring so well, trying to rescue one of their comrades who was pinned to the ground underneath the prongs of an enormous pitchfork. The trapped Purgatorian struggled to free herself, but every time she moved, the armour-clad demon that held the pitchfork leant in on its weapon, gouging her wounds and wringing fresh screams of agony out of her. The monster paid no attention as the blows of the other soldiers bounced ineffectively off of its shell, focussing intently on torturing its poor victim instead. An angel passed swiftly by, ignoring the group’s cries for help, heading directly and unswervingly towards a large orange demon, wreathed in flames, that resembled a praying mantis. With brutal efficiency, the angel chopped off the mantis’s head, freeing a man who had been just seconds away from certain death.

  Observing this mayhem, a new question suddenly occurred to me. “How come none of the other demons are attacking us?”

  “We’ve been marked by this one. Claimed. Normally, that wouldn’t count for anything and the others would be all over us, but if one of the masters singles someone out for special treatment,” she said, nodding meaningfully at our foe, “then that’s a different matter.” She averted her gaze from the demon for an instant. “You must have done something special to deserve such royal treatment from Hell’s ranks on your first day out.”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  One eyebrow flickered upwards. She continued to watch the demon, like a lion tamer facing down a particularly dangerous animal. “There’s no such thing as luck, Dan. Fate, maybe; but not luck.”

  Whether it was fate or luck, I didn’t really care; but one thing was for sure, and that’s that it wasn’t on my side. The news that the thing gearing up to attack us was one of the head chefs in this crazy kitchen—and that it had chosen me from amongst all the other tasty morsels on the menu—was enough to swing the pendulum of my confidence firmly back in the other direction once more, and the demon, sensing my fears, suddenly lurched towards us again.

  This time there was no hesitation or leniency in its attack. It crouched and lunged forwards like a giant panther, and Harper shoved me to one side just in the nick of time. She herself was not quite so fortunate. The demon lashed out with its claws as it shot by, striking her on the chest and knocking her to the ground. There was a tiny metallic chink, somehow audible over the noise of the battle, and I saw the small, familiar shape of my mother’s medallion tumbling through the air, torn free from around Harper’s neck. However much I wanted to watch where it landed, I forced my attention onto the more pressing matter of what had happened to Harper instead. I knew that by doing so, I had seen the last of the medallion, but if Saint George had done his job and protected Harper, then it was a small price to pay. I’m sure my mother would have approved.

  To my relief, the only damage that Harper had sustained was to her armour, just below her neck. I started towards her, intending to help her to her feet, but had taken only a couple of steps before her eyes widened.

  “Don’t worry about me, you idiot, look out behind you!”

  I spun around to face the demon, only to find it already bearing down on us again. I scarcely had time to raise up my sword before it was upon me. With one sweep of its hand, it swatted my weapon to one side as if it were nothing more than a twig, sending a shockwave reverberating painfully along my arm. Somehow I managed to keep a grip on the sword, but before I could retaliate, a second, backhanded sweep flung me to the ground. Even though battered, I was still alert enough to notice that the demon had deliberately refrained from using its claws, presumably because it was still intending to draw our deaths out as much as possible, to obtain maximum, twisted pleasure from them. I hoped I could somehow exploit its overconfidence and get Harper and myself out of this mess. But how?

  I got to my feet as slowly as I dared, making an effort to appear more groggy than I felt. The armour I wore, about which I had had so many misgivings earlier, had absorbed most of the force of the blow, but I decided that it was prudent to keep that a secret for now. The rush of combat was enough to reawaken the soldier’s instincts that lay dormant within me, like a splash of cold water in my face. The fundamental principles that the drill sergeants had endlessly beaten into me back on Earth came hurrying to the forefront of my mind, reporting for duty: never let your enemy know your strengths or weaknesses; always try to control his reactions; no weapon is more effective than surprise. Everything fell back into place, and by the time I was on my feet, I felt properly ready to tackle this black menace.

  The demon wasted no time in renewing its attac
k, bounding towards me and rearing up, raising its mighty fist high into the air once again. I focussed only on my opponent, filtering out the other battles going on around us, the barrage of the Fallen that roared overhead, the fountain of earth that erupted a short distance behind my foe. When the blow came, the hand plummeted towards me at an almost impossible speed, but even so, I was ready for it. At the last moment, I made a miraculous recovery from my apparently stunned state and thrust my sword upwards, locking my arms in place and bracing my feet against the ground. I looked around my blade at the demon. Now it was my turn to grin.

  A look of horror and rage came into its eyes in the split second it took for it to realise that it had been tricked, but it was too late by then for it to pull its hand back. There was a deafening roar as it impaled itself on my sword with the full force of its swing. My feet skidded backwards in the earth, leaving trails a metre long, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from being driven to my knees. Blood, or whatever else it was that ran in the demon’s veins, sprayed out of the wound and ran down my blade; and just like Harper’s sword, mine flared brighter at the taste of it. The blood hissed and spat angrily as it oozed towards my hand, then quickly evaporated, leaving coils of acrid smoke in its wake.

  The downward pressure quickly abated as the demon tried to draw back its wounded hand. I suddenly found myself being pulled instead of pushed, and almost wrenched off my feet in the process. I gripped the handle of my sword tightly and tried to yank it free of the hand, but it was no use. The blade was firmly lodged in place, and every time I tugged at the sword, fresh blood and howls came from the demon. The violence and desperation of its efforts to disengage itself made me certain it wasn’t play-acting this time, and I grimly held on to the sword. I knew that if it slipped from my grasp, I would be left weaponless in the face of an enraged demon.