Clovenhoof 03 Godsquad

by Heide Goody

  “Wow,” said Matt. “That’s crazy.”

  “There are unconfirmed reports that the initial explosions were caused by missile strikes, but no group or country has claimed responsibility for the attack. Both the US and China are mobilising forces in response to the situation. Airlines are cancelling all long-haul flights while the impact of the smoke cloud is assessed. We will continue to keep you updated as —”

  “Someone’s fixing to start a war,” said Matt with a disbelieving smile.

  “It's the fifth trumpet,” said Joan, shaking her head. “Have we already had the fourth?”

  “Trumpet?”

  “Trumpet,” said Joan. “You know, from the Book of Revelation.”

  “What?” said Matt. “Let's pretend that I don't know. What do you mean?”

  “Signs of the end of days. The fourth trumpet is a darkness, blotting out the sun and the moon. I suppose that’s the smoke.”

  “I heard a voice speaking about that.” said Matt.

  “Where? Where?” demanded Joan.

  “It was coming from inside your wolf.”

  “Inside?”

  Matt shrugged.

  “The world makes little sense to me these days,” he said, with an almost insane giddiness. “Why not have voices speak from inside a wolf’s innards? And the fifth trumpet? What’s that? The internet crashing? Strictly Come Dancing being cancelled? A worldwide shortage of tea? I know some people who would think the world was coming to an end if those happened.”

  Joan ignored him.

  “‘And the fifth angel sounded a trumpet and I saw a star fall from Heaven to the earth and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit,’” quoted Joan. “Don't you see how it's happening?”

  Matt slapped the steering wheel and chuckled loudly.

  “I just realised how much you remind me of – what’s his name - Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction,” he said. “You know, ‘I will strike you down with great wrath and something-something vengeance.’ You're priceless.”

  “Really? You think this is funny?” The heat of anger burned her cheeks. “Well you won't be laughing when you see the effects of the fifth trumpet, and take it from me, it's just around the corner.”

  “Go on, what am I to expect?” he asked.

  “The fifth trumpet is the first of the woes,” Joan said, “and it's not the sort of woe that means something a little bit sad, this is the sort of woe that means that Heaven is seeing the whole of mankind teetering on the edge of the abyss. It talks about a star falling from Heaven, who's given the key to the bottomless pit. There's more about smoke that rises out, darkens the air and blocks the sunlight - sound familiar? Then from out of the smoke, the locusts are unleashed.”

  “So we're talking about a plague of insects?” asked Matt.

  “No,” said Joan. “’And the shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had the power to torment people…”

  “That doesn’t sound like anything on earth,” said Matt.

  “Really?” said Joan.

  Christopher was pleased with their progress in the balloon. They were at the correct altitude and the wind was constant. If he kept it up, they'd be in Toulon in a couple of hours.

  A sudden violent noise from behind them made him twist around to look. A squadron of fighter jets shot overhead, terrifyingly close.

  “Gwacious me!” exclaimed Francis. “Those are aeroplanes?”

  “Fighter jets,” said Christopher. “Dassault Rafales equipped with laser guided bombs.”

  “Locusts,” whispered Em.

  “I've seen locusts,” offered Francis. “Cweatures with a fearsome appetite, it's twue but —”

  “No, the locusts from Revelation,” insisted Em. “The curved tails like a scorpion. The iron breastplates. The thunder of their wings. Their power to destroy. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Joan's right.”

  “Really?” said Christopher. “Would you like to explain exactly what you and Joan were discussing?”

  Em sighed.

  “It's all tied in with something I did,” she said. “Simon isn’t a person.”

  “What?” said Francis.

  “It’s a military computer…”

  “It's time I told you everything,” said Joan.

  “Okay.”

  “Now you're going to have trouble believing some of it,” said Joan. “I don't know what to do about that, to be honest.”

  “Joan, I've had that problem since we met. Just tell me everything and we'll take it from there.”

  The road was straight and fairly empty. Joan gazed into the distance and wondered how she could possibly make Matt believe her.

  “Right. Well first of all, I really am Joan of Arc.”

  “Joan of Arc. Right. That explains the get up. But Joan of Arc is dead.”

  “I died in 1431 when they burnt me at the stake.”

  “You died.”

  “It wasn't nice.”

  “I shouldn’t think it was.”

  “Not nice at all. I still can’t even look at overdone steak.”

  “So, you died in 1431, and yet here you are.”

  “Yes, here I am. Now, you need to know that Heaven is real. That's where I've been for most of the time since then.”

  “Heaven? Clouds and harps and stuff?”

  “Actually, there’s very little of that in the Celestial City. It’s a beautiful place. Beautiful buildings. Clean streets. And everyone’s so very, very friendly.”

  “So, like Disneyland then. The original, obviously. Not the French one.”

  “Not like Disneyland,” she said sternly. “Not much. Anyway, Heaven's super-efficient. They know every soul on earth and where they are, always. There was a call that came into the unit recently where they knew there wasn't a soul.”

  “Unit?”

  “Non-Specific Prayer Assessment Unit. Heaven has a lot of duties. Lots of prayers to answer. There's a thing we call the Non-Specific Prayer Assessment Unit where they take a lot of them.”

  A smile played around Matt's lips, but Joan pressed on.

  “A prayer with no soul attached is quite unusual,” said Joan. “No, not just unusual, it's unheard of.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “So they decided to send a team down to earth to investigate.”

  “That would be you,” said Matt.

  “Me, Francis and Christopher. Saints, all of us.”

  “You forgot the wolf,” said Matt. “I suppose he's a saint as well.”

  “No, that's the Wolf of Gubbio. He belongs to Francis. Sort of. He wasn't supposed to come.”

  “Why haven't I seen Christopher?” asked Matt.

  “Ah, yes. He's invisible. Something to do with him not really existing. He's there, but humans can't see him.”

  “So. You, Joan of Arc came to earth with the invisible man and Saint Francis of Assisi.”

  “Our quest was to find the Virgin Mary, as the prayer was directed at her. The woman who calls herself Em turned out to be the Virgin Mary, so we found her all right but she's not mad keen on helping us. I thought that might change when she realised what she'd done, but she's got her own agenda.”

  “So, Em is the Virgin Mary. That would be Mary van Jochem, international terrorist, anarchist, whatever you want to call her. Associates with the lowest of the criminal underbelly, leaves a trail of devastation and, by all accounts is a rather caustic character as well.”

  “Of course, you met her. She's been here a long while, and I think it's made her a bit cynical. Her heart's in the right place though.”

  Matt thumped the steering wheel, his brow furrowed.

  “Her heart's in the right place? Shall I just phone my superiors in London and say to them that I won't be apprehending Mary van Jochem, in spite of the hackin
g and terrorism charges, because her heart's in the right place? Oh, and by the way, she's the Virgin Mary?”

  “You're getting a bit ranty, Matt,” said Joan. “Anyway, the hacking's quite relevant to this story. She does it to undermine things that she doesn't approve of, which is pretty much everything, actually. The problem we've got is that she hacked a military computer called Simon.”

  “Systѐme Intelligent Militaire et Opérations Nucléaires, you mean,” said Matt.

  “That’s the one. Anyway, she replaced his manual with the Book of Revelation,” said Joan.

  “She did what?”

  “So Simon’s making the things from Revelation happen?” said Christopher.

  “Yes,” said Em.

  “But... but, some weally howwible things happen in the book of Wevelation!” squeaked Francis.

  “Oh, Really? Hadn't realised.” Em rolled her eyes.

  “I heard the fourth trumpet,” said Christopher. “It came from inside the wolf.”

  “The locusts are from the fifth trumpet,” said Em.

  “Whatever's happening is gathering pace, there's only three more trumpets to go. Quite the cock-up you've created here, Em.”

  “Zip it, travel boy. At least I can do things here on earth. Fat lot of use an invisible man is.”

  “Not all of what you do seems vewy constwuctive,” observed Francis. “By the way, did you just say that the twumpet came fwom inside the wolf?”

  “He must have swallowed something,” said Christopher, “and as for doing things, I'll have you know I do plenty!”

  Francis rubbed the wolf's flank with a concerned look.

  “Poor boy got a tummy ache?”

  The wolf continued to stand with his paws up and his great head over the edge of the basket, tongue out and enjoying the view. Christopher thought that he didn't appear to be suffering from a tummy ache at all.

  “Can I just point out that I am the only one of us who is doing something right now?” said Christopher. “I am keeping us airborne, maintaining an accurate course, and ensuring that the wind is a constant thirty knots.”

  “I thought it dropped for a moment there,” said Em.

  “Well I do need to concentrate, and that news about your runaway mainframe was a mite distracting. So, come on, what's your plan, Em?”

  “Oh, I thought I might do something brilliant and constructive. You know, like hi-jack a giant penis or have a little animal church service in the woods.”

  “Don't you ever tire of sneering at other people?” asked Christopher.

  “Worship is always constwuctive,” sniffed Francis. “Maybe you should twy it? A little more wespect would become you.”

  “How dare you! Respect? You're talking about bowing down to the patriarchy, not respect,” shouted Em. “I said goodbye to that centuries ago and I'm not picking it up again now.”

  The wolf emitted a low growl and the basket rocked severely as it was buffeted by side winds.

  “For crying out loud,” muttered the Blessed Virgin. “Trapped in a basket with a pair of dunderheads and a flatulent mutt.”

  “I wonder if you really know what respect means?” said Christopher. “It's nothing to do with being male or female. You couldn't even respect Joan, could you?”

  “The Tin Woman? Out there on her lonely quest to find a heart.” She laughed bitterly. “And we’ve got Toto here,” she said, gesturing at the wolf. “So which one of you is the Scarecrow, which the Cowardly Lion? Fuck me, that makes me Dorothy.”

  “You know,” said Christopher, “the difference between you and her is that she's out there learning, while you're here bitching about it.”

  “Should we be wowwied that we can't see where we're going?” said Francis.

  Christopher tore his gaze away from Em and frowned at the surrounding fog. It was his temper of course. The swirling winds must have knocked them right off course. He'd have to correct for that, once he'd got them stable again.

  “Gah! Made a right pig's ear of this. Now. Where are — oh!”

  The basket slammed into something, tipping precariously. The wolf disappeared over the side. Francis let out a shriek of horror, and rushed to look over, but the basket tilted again, knocking him back. As the saints struggled to keep their feet, the bottom of the basket erupted beneath them. A stone spike appeared, and rose up as they scrambled back. As the basket slid down, the spike continued to rise until it knocked the gas burner.

  “Uh oh,” said Christopher, seeing what was about to happen. The burner was pushed up until the flames started to devour the fabric of the penis balloon. The fire caught and flared up above their heads.

  “I think we need to abandon ship. Whatever this is, we need to try and climb down it before we become chicken in a basket.”

  “Trust you to find a food reference at a time like this,” said Em, climbing over the side.

  “I'm weally wowwied about the wolf,” said Francis. “He fell right out.”

  “We need to be able to see what we're doing.” Christopher clawed onto the outside edge of the basket. “I can't even see what we're stuck on.”

  He twitched his nose and the fog cleared in an instant.

  “Oh,” he said, his feet on the only solid thing in sight. “Look where we are! Those buggers up in Heaven will be laughing themselves silly at this one.”

  “So, what’s in Marseille?” asked Matt.

  “A bar. The Couteau Noir. It’s a place Michel mentioned. And then it’s on to Toulon.”

  “Toulon?” Matt looked at her askance. “Home to the French fleet and the largest naval base on the entire Mediterranean.”

  “Is it?” said Joan. “Then that’s obviously where we’re going. Simon will be on that base with all the warships.”

  Matt laughed.

  “And I suppose we're going to go in there, access the mainframe and teach it how to play tic-tac-toe?”

  “Yes, we need to somehow get inside and — wait, you're mocking me!”

  “Not at all. There are people, Joan. Experts. They can help you sort this out.”

  “Good! That's what I want. I need to get to the top people and make them believe me. Do you think your contacts can get us inside the naval base?”

  “I had a different kind of help in mind, Joan.”

  Joan grabbed her sword and angled it up at Matt again.

  “You're saying you think I'm crazy, aren't you?”

  “No one’s using the word ‘crazy,’” said Matt. “Mentally divergent perhaps.” He tried to push the end of the sword away with his hand. “Can you point that thing somewhere else? It's really sharp!”

  Joan wasn’t listening.

  “I thought you might have the vision to see that what I'm telling you is real,” she said, “but you think I'm just some poor delusional girl. I really thought you were different. I thought you were starting to understand me.”

  The wolf slithered down the tile roof of the church after falling from the balloon, and landed inelegantly on a pile of grass cuttings at the back. He jumped down and trotted off to explore the town. His ears pricked up as he detected a lot of activity somewhere nearby.

  There was a smell in the air. Something unusual.

  Sausages too.

  He decided to check out the sausage smell, so he changed direction and bounded in through the door of a small butcher's shop. A man in a red apron tried to shoo him away but then backed up when his gaze met the wolf's. The wolf slotted his great head beneath the glass counter and gently teased the sausages out. He left the shop with links hanging down on either side of his mouth. He would take them back to the quiet of the graveyard to devour them in peace.

  He almost missed it, the scent of sausages was so strong in his nostrils. That unusual smell again. He turned and entered an alley.

  Francis realised that his robes were not ideally suited to climbing down a church spire.

  “I'm finding this vewy difficult,” he called. “How are you managing, Cwistopher?”

&
nbsp; “Hitched my robe right up. Bit draughty, but at least I can put my feet where I want.

  “You're not embawassed?”

  “I'm invisible, aren't I! No need to be bothered if nobody can see you.”

  “I can see you,” said Em, “but frankly I wouldn't bother looking. There's gargoyles here with more charisma.”

  “Some of the animal carvings are most attwactive,” noted Francis.

  He glanced over to see why Em had gone quiet for a moment and saw that she had come across a statue of herself.

  She saw him looking and glanced across.

  “Not much of a resemblance, is there?” she said. She pulled a cigarette from her pocket. It was bright blue from the toilet chemicals. She pushed it between the lips of the statue and gave it an appraising look.

  “Better,” she said and continued her climb down.

  They discovered that there were drainpipes on the last third of the descent, which helped a lot.

  “We need to check out where we are,” said Em.

  “Aubenas,” said Christopher automatically. “In the Rhone valley.”

  There were a couple of shops across the square from the church. They seemed unusually busy. The bakery had a queue backing up out of the door, and there was some agitated shouting from the front of the queue.

  “What do you mean I can only have two loaves? Madame Pichard bought four!”

  “We're saying two per person now. Two only.”

  The saints walked across the square, past the cluster of old men playing petanque in the sand and entered the tiny grocery store. It was a store that looked as though it normally got a couple of customers at a time. There were at least thirty people trying to jostle around the goods, all filling their baskets with unlikely piles. A woman scanned the nearly-empty shelf before her and scooped the five remaining packets of biscuits into her basket. The people behind her shot jealous glares at her haul.

  “What's happened?” Em asked a woman.

  “Could you move please, I want to get to the pharmacy before they close.”

  “I was just asking.”

  “Didn't you hear the news? Problems in the Middle East.”

  “World War Three!” declared another woman shrilly.