Demon Storm

by Justin Richards

  Most of the rest of the cellar was taken up with computer equipment – system boxes, monitor screens, disk drives. Cables ran across the floor like creepers and up the walls like vines.

  In among the jungle of wires and cables was a narrow bed, on top of which was a cardboard box with a pizza in it. Ben didn’t need to look too closely to know that Maria had been right – not everything on the pizza was original topping; some of it had grown since. A couple of slices had been pulled away, but they didn’t look like they had been touched any more than the rest of the pizza.

  In the middle of it all sat a young man in a wheeled office chair. He had long, dark, greasy hair and was wearing jeans and a denim shirt. He looked incredibly pale and rather gaunt, with angular features and dark-rimmed eyes. The heartbeat thump of rhythm was coming from his earphones, connected to one of the computers in front of him.

  ‘That’s Webby,’ Gemma said.

  The man was bobbing his head in time with the music. He tapped at a keyboard, moved a mouse, slapped the side of a screen and sighed. When he saw them, he swung round rapidly in the chair, the wire from his earphones knocking a couple of CDs to the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ Webby said – more loudly than was necessary. ‘Hang on.’ He pulled out the earphones and clicked with his mouse, stopping the beat of the music. ‘What can I do you for?’

  ‘We came to introduce Ben,’ Rupam said. ‘He’s new.’

  ‘Hi there, new Ben,’ Webby said. ‘Look, will this take long, only I want to finish up here. Just another week or two and I’m out of here.’

  ‘He’s always saying that,’ Gemma whispered to Ben.

  ‘So what do you do down here?’ Ben asked. ‘Is this where you live?’

  Webby picked up a can of coke from one of the worktops. He swilled it round, then put it down again without drinking.

  ‘Just till the job’s done,’ Webby said. ‘Taking a bit longer than expected. But as soon as everything’s set up and working properly, I’m history.’ He pointed to the main screen in front of him. ‘Monitoring the various emails, text messages and reports that come in from the School of Night agents out in the field. That’s the other kids to you, Ben.’

  ‘Webby set up all the systems,’ Rupam explained. ‘Any agent can report in, then Webby’s systems automatically filter out the important information and pass it on so Mr Knight can decide what to do about it. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Sure is,’ Webby agreed. ‘Every time one of you guys uses their mobile, the image data is sent here to be analysed and stored. It’s a full-time job keeping all the systems running and monitoring all the messages and reports that come in. Then there’s the blogs and the conspiracy websites that I need to keep checking for any hint of dangerous paranormal activity that might need further investigation. You can only automate so much of it.’

  ‘Keeps you busy, then,’ Ben said.

  ‘Oh, I’m just doing it until the systems are all up and running properly. Short-term contract, you see. Not a lifetime’s work. Can’t wait to move on to the next challenge. That’s what it’s all about. Variety – the spice of life.’

  Gemma nudged Rupam to ask about the tank battle game and Webby laughed.

  ‘You’re supposed to pick up anti-gravity converters from the warehouse on the previous level once you clear it of bad guys. Then you fit those to your tanks using the upgrade option and float out of the rubble and over the bridge. Easy.’

  Rupam looked at Ben and shook his head. ‘Oh yes, easy. We should have guessed.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ben said.

  ‘Any time.’ Webby pushed his earphones back in and started the music again. ‘Catch me while you can, though,’ he shouted above the noise in his ears. ‘Shan’t be here much longer.’

  ‘When does he leave?’ Ben asked as they climbed back up the stairs.

  ‘Never,’ Rupam said. ‘He says he’s on a three-month contract.’

  ‘He’s been here longer than any of us,’ Gemma said. ‘Except maybe Maria.’

  Rupam nodded. ‘He’s been here for years. I think he likes it down there. He never goes out.’

  ‘So does he sleep down there?’ Ben asked. ‘I saw he had a bed.’

  They had reached the top of the stairs. Knight was standing waiting for them in the corridor.

  ‘Maria told me you were down here,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ben said instinctively. He assumed they were about to be told off.

  ‘Oh, it’s no problem.’ Knight smiled. ‘I’m sure it does Webby good to see some real people now and again, rather than just his machines.’ He turned to Gemma. ‘It’s time we were going. Are you ready?’

  Gemma nodded. ‘Sorry, I’d forgotten the time. I’ll get my coat.’

  ‘No problem, but we need to make a start.’ He turned to go, then changed his mind and turned back. ‘We’re off to a school about fifty miles away,’ he said to Ben. ‘One of the teachers there is a former pupil of the School of Night and she thinks she’s got a few children who might be of interest. Why don’t you come along as well and keep Gemma company? You never know,’ he added as he headed off down the corridor, ‘you might learn something.’

  *

  Miss Jansis had asked some children to stay back after school for a reading club. There were half a dozen nine-and ten-year-olds in a temporary classroom that was parked like a large caravan in the playground of Tollarton Hall Primary School.

  It was like a replay of the special assembly at the home, but in less impressive surroundings and with fewer, younger children. Knight didn’t bother to send any children out, there were so few to start with. Gemma sat at the side of the classroom, watching the six children intently. Ben sat beside her while Knight set up his Judgement Box on the teacher’s desk. The children watched with interest.

  ‘We’ve been reading about pirates and treasure, haven’t we?’ Miss Jansis said. She was a small lady, with tiny glasses and a northern accent. ‘Can you guess what our visitor has in his box?’

  ‘I bet it’s treasure,’ one boy said.

  ‘Or an elephant,’ a girl suggested.

  ‘An elephant would be too big,’ the boy told her.

  ‘Not if it’s a baby elephant.’

  Knight unlocked the box. Again he murmured the words that Ben had half heard in his study.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Ben asked Gemma.

  ‘You know what’s in there. The box is like a gateway to part of Hell. You have to know the right words of power to open it. And to close it again. To seal it tight shut so nothing can escape from it.’ Gemma leaned closer to Ben. ‘Can you see it? Her aura?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Of course.’ Though Ben couldn’t see anything. He didn’t even know which girl Gemma was talking about. He took out his mobile phone and flipped it open.

  At once he knew who Gemma meant. She was sitting beside the elephant girl and on the phone it looked as if her hair was on fire. Knight glanced across at Gemma and Ben. Gemma nodded, indicating the girl with the aura.

  Then Knight opened the box.

  ‘No elephant, I’m afraid,’ he said, tipping the box so the children could see inside. ‘No treasure either. In fact – can any of you see anything at all?’ He was staring at the girl with the aura, looking to see her reaction.

  She went white, her mouth trembling.

  Quickly, Knight closed the lid of the box. He locked it and spoke quietly again: ‘Arceo excludum coerceo Hades terminus.’

  Miss Jansis hurried to the girl. ‘Oh dear, Toni – are you all right? It was just a box. I expect you’re tired. Have you had a drink recently?’

  But Ben heard none of the fussing. He barely noticed Knight talking quietly to Gemma, then taking Miss Jansis to one side to give instructions for monitoring the girl’s progress and gradually introducing her to the world of ghosts and demons …

  Ben was staring ashen-faced at the screen of his mobile phone. He was biting back the urge to yell out in fright a
nd disgust. On the phone, for the first time, he had seen what was really inside the Judgement Box.

  He knew from talking to Gemma that the more gifted children might see the vague shape of the creature. They might see shadows and flickering images. Glimpses of the thing that lived in the box.

  What Ben had seen on his phone was much, much clearer – much, much worse. He could only begin to guess what Gemma might be able to see. What Sam had seen. The fleeting image that Ben had witnessed was more than enough.

  An imp of a creature with skin like the bark of an old tree. A forked tail, gleaming yellow eyes, a forked tongue that licked over drawn-back lips. Teeth as sharp as blades. A face so ugly and horrific that Ben never ever wanted to see anything like it again.

  ‘I need some fresh air,’ he gasped to Gemma and Knight, and left them to finish with Miss Jansis while the children chose their reading books.

  *

  There was a woman standing by the school gate. Probably a mum come to collect her child from the reading group, Ben thought. Except she didn’t look like he’d expect a school mum to look. She was about the right age to have a ten-year-old child, but she was dressed smartly in a dark jacket and skirt, her black hair falling in perfect symmetry round her face and on to her shoulders. She was holding a briefcase. Perhaps she’d come straight from work.

  But if she was a waiting mum, why didn’t she come into the playground? She was standing on the other side of the school fence and she was looking over at the temporary classroom that Ben had just left. Was she a teacher?

  The woman’s head moved, tracking from the classroom to the gate in the fence. It was an odd movement – as if she was watching someone walk quickly across the playground. Only there was no one there.

  Just a woman waiting outside the school gates. Ben was unsettled by the sight of the creature in the Judgement Box. He was seeing mysteries and secrets everywhere. He realised he was still holding his phone and made to close it up and put it away.

  As he moved, the image on the screen showed the playground. It showed the woman beyond the fence. It showed the playground gate, where she was now looking. It showed a hunched, leathery creature that scuttled out of the gate and up to the woman.

  It was about thirty centimetres tall and looked as if it was made of stone. The creature had claws for hands and feet and it moved like a monkey, knuckles grazing the ground. A pair of jagged wings, translucent skin stretched like parchment between spikes of bone, was folded across its back. It had the face of a grinning gargoyle and Ben knew that it had been hiding outside the classroom – watching and listening.

  The woman bent down slightly and the creature leapt up on to her shoulder. It perched there, like a bizarre and terrifying pirate’s parrot, as the woman turned and walked away.

  Looking up from the image on his phone, unable to see what was sitting on the woman’s shoulder, Ben saw that she was walking awkwardly to compensate for the creature’s weight. She walked with one shoulder slightly stooped, lopsided, ungainly … Just like the thin man Ben had seen at the home the night Miss Haining was attacked. And now he knew what had attacked her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Knight asked, smiling down at Ben. ‘You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

  14

  KNIGHT’S EXPRESSION BECAME MORE GRAVE as he listened to Ben’s story.

  ‘You saw it on your phone?’ Gemma asked.

  Ben nodded. He didn’t want to admit he couldn’t see the creature except with his phone, so he said, ‘I wanted to check, to be sure there was something there.’

  ‘Did you see anything, sense anything?’ Knight asked Gemma.

  ‘There was something,’ she admitted. ‘Just a feeling. But I was concentrating on the classroom, not the playground outside, or who might be looking in. I thought it was the imp in the Judgement Box I could sense. Didn’t see anything, though.’

  ‘You didn’t want to,’ Ben told her, shuddering at the memory of the creature. Even as he said it, he realised that Gemma probably saw more frightening things every day.

  ‘Back to the car,’ Knight decided. ‘The woman you saw will be far away by now. But we’ll call Webby. He can analyse the images and data from your phone. If he isn’t on it already.’

  It was getting dark as they drove back to Gibbet Manor. Knight called Webby, who had indeed already noticed the paranormal activity detected by Ben’s phone.

  His voice sounded slightly hollow coming from the speakers in the car: ‘I assumed he was looking at the imp in the box. But I did double-check. It’s been a quiet afternoon. Like all the demons have gone on holiday for a bit.’

  ‘Not very likely,’ Knight told him.

  ‘Anyway, I’m analysing it now. Running a search on our lady with the Grotesque. Should be done by the time you get back.’

  ‘Grotesque?’ Ben asked, after Knight had ended the call.

  ‘Just what we call them,’ Gemma said.

  ‘Like a witch’s familiar,’ Knight explained. ‘A Grotesque is a small demon or spirit that works for a particular human, or occasionally a group of people who act together. It’s bound to them by words of power and has to obey their will and do their bidding.’

  ‘Imp-slave,’ Ben said.

  ‘Sort of. They never stray far from their human master or mistress. The two are bound together by an invisible thread, if you like. They become different aspects of the same person. So even though the adult probably doesn’t have the Sight as such, they can see the Grotesque.’

  ‘It’s very rare,’ Gemma added. ‘Not many people are clever enough to know how to bind a demon to them. And not many of them are powerful enough to be able to do it.’

  ‘But we are coming across more of this sort of thing,’ Knight said grimly.

  ‘Me too,’ Ben muttered.

  Knight turned to look at Ben over his shoulder. Just a glance, then he was concentrating on the road ahead again. ‘What do you mean?’

  Ben’s mouth was dry. His stomach lurched like it did when he got travel-sick. But that wasn’t the problem now. He should tell Knight, he decided. It could be important – and it might be a vital clue to what had happened to Sam.

  ‘After my sister disappeared,’ he said, ‘there was a man. He walked awkwardly, with his shoulder bent under an invisible weight. I didn’t see it, but I heard it laughing – his Grotesque. It attacked Miss Haining, drove her mad.’

  ‘Mr Magill told me about that. He didn’t mention any man. Who was he? What did he look like?’

  ‘It was dark. I didn’t really see him properly. Tall and very thin, with fair hair. He walked kind of lopsided.’

  Knight’s eyes watched Ben carefully in the rear-view mirror for several seconds. ‘Maybe Webby can find a connection,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything that happened, all you can remember. Absolutely everything.’

  *

  The cellar was crowded enough with all Webby’s equipment. Now with Knight, Gemma, Ben, Maria, Rupam and Mrs Bailey also present, there was hardly room to stand, though it still felt incredibly cold.

  The only space was between the sets of monitors where Webby wheeled his office chair at speed between keyboards, tapping away on several different search engines and databases at once.

  A screen at one end of his L-shaped arrangement of desks showed what looked like a weather map of the British Isles, with areas shaded in different colours. Another showed a still image taken from the recording Ben’s phone had automatically made and sent in. Webby zoomed in on it so that the woman with black hair was frozen in position, staring out of the screen. On the monitor next to it, a succession of female faces flashed up in a window.

  ‘No match yet,’ Webby reported. ‘Must be quite a powerful lady, though.’

  ‘To control a Grotesque of that magnitude, you mean?’ Knight said.

  ‘No, I mean to afford a jacket like that. I’ve cross-referenced CCTV at the only stores that sell it. Nothing so far.’

  ‘Perhaps someone bought it for her,’ Mar
ia suggested. There was a hint of envy in her tone.

  ‘Or maybe she nicked it,’ Ben said.

  Gemma and Rupam grinned, but no one else reacted to the comment.

  ‘Look,’ Mrs Bailey said, pointing at the screen sorting through the different women.

  It seemed to Ben that she spoke before the flashing images stopped, displaying a grainy photograph of the same woman.

  ‘That’s her,’ Ben agreed.

  Webby leapt up from his chair and rattled at the keyboard. A mass of data scrolled up next to the picture of the woman. Other images appeared too – a profile shot, a scanned reproduction of a newspaper article, a collection of tiny faces headed ‘Known Associates’ …

  ‘Daniella Lawton,’ Webby announced. ‘Thirty-two years old. Inherited her father’s company, which manufactures electrical components. Floated it on the stock market and made out like a bandit. She’s worth millions and she wants even more. Ambitious is an understatement. House in London, bigger house in Kent. Holiday cottage in Portugal … Well, I say “cottage”, but it’s got a swimming pool and tennis courts. And her own jet to get there, of course.’

  ‘Any paranormal background?’ Knight asked.

  ‘Has her own private astrologer. Been seen at seances and meetings of the European Alchemical Society. Has a stake in a research lab looking into what they call New Age solutions. Think they can cure cancer with healing stones and incantations, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Can they?’ Gemma asked.

  Webby shrugged. ‘Who knows. Doubt it, though, or they’d be selling it big time.’

  ‘So what’s she doing outside a primary school in the south-west of England?’ Rupam asked.

  ‘Good question,’ Knight acknowledged. ‘Anyone got any suggestions?’

  Webby moved over to the screen with the coloured map on it. ‘I asked Captain Morton if his American friends could spare us a satellite for an hour or two. There’s a spirit-filter on the image, so this shows – very roughly – the levels of paranormal activity over Britain. The redder the colour, the more activity. So clusters round the major population centres, as you’d expect. All pretty normal.’ He grinned. ‘Or paranormal.’