BREW 1: Subject hiccup, then vanish in puff of smoke.
BREW 2: Subject fall off chair. Appear to die.
BREW 3: One of subject’s eyes fall out.
BREW 4: Two of subject’s eyes fall out.
BREW 5: Subject claim that he can fly. Subject try. Subject wrong.
BREW 6: Subject claim that he can fly again. Subject try. Subject succeed. Gath remove subject from ceiling with broom.
BREW 7: Subject beg for mercy. Threaten to sue. Fall asleep.
BREW 8: Subject turn green. Become violently ill. Appear to die again.
BREW 9: Subject say worst version yet. Subject say it wish it really was dead. Subject plead for mercy.
BREW 10: Subject claim tongue on fire. Gath examine. Subject’s tongue actually on fire.
And so on. Beside each unsuccessful attempt to make a drinkable version of Spiggit’s Old Peculiar, Shan and Gath had glumly added a big X. But they now had high hopes for Brew 19. This one looked like ale. It had a nice frothy head, and its color was a deep, rich red. It even smelled like something that one might drink without a gun being held to one’s head.
They handed the stone cup to Brock, who examined it carefully. He was becoming quite the expert. He sniffed it, and nodded approvingly.
“That doesn’t smell bad at all,” he said.
Shan and Gath nodded encouragingly. Brock took a sip, held it in his mouth for a time, then swallowed.
“Well, I have to tell you, that’s really very-”
Brock exploded, scattering pieces of himself over the walls, the brewing equipment, and Shan and Gath. They wiped Brock off themselves, and watched as the various bits slimed and scuttled across the floor to reconstitute themselves once again. When he was complete, and apparently recovered, Brock looked warily at the liquid that was now smoking on the stones by his feet.
“Needs a bit of work, that,” he said.
Shan sank to the floor and put his head in his hands. Gath groaned. All of that effort, and they still had not managed to create a drinkable beer, let alone a satisfactory imitation of the wonder that was Spiggit’s Old Peculiar. They would never succeed, never. A second cup of Brew 19 stood beneath the stone tap. Gath was about to pour it down a hole in the floor when a dwarf entered the cave, followed by three more individuals of similarly diminished stature.
“All right, lads?” said Jolly, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll have a pint of your finest, and a packet of peanuts.”
“That’ll be two,” said Angry.
“Three,” said Dozy.
“Unk,” said Mumbles, who had reverted to type now that the beer had been found.
Shan and Gath looked confused. Not only were there unexpected dwarfs in their cave, but they were unexpected dwarfs with a death wish if they were actually prepared to sample the local brew.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Brock. “It’s got a bit of a kick.”
Jolly saw that Gath was poised to throw away the cup of Brew 19.
“Hey, hey! Don’t waste that,” he said. “Give it here.”
He ambled over to Gath and took the cup. Gath was too shocked to do anything more than gape. He had wondered if the dwarfs really existed at all, and had speculated that he had possibly been exposed to too many toxic brewing fumes. Nevertheless, this dwarf did seem to be speaking to him, and Gath no longer had a cup in his hand, so either the dwarfs were real or Gath needed to have a long lie-down.
“You’ll never make any money that way,” said Jolly. “You should pour it back in the barrel if it’s bad. Nobody will notice.”
He sniffed at the cup.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said to his comrades. “It’s Spiggit’s, but not as we know it.”
He took a long draft, swirled it round his mouth, and swallowed. Shan and Gath immediately curled up and covered their heads, not terribly anxious to be covered in bits of dwarf, while Brock hid behind a rock.
Nothing happened. Jolly just burped softly, and said: “Bit weak, and it’s lacking a certain… unpleasantness.”
He handed the cup to the others, who each took a sip.
“I’m getting a hint of dead fish,” said Angry.
“Oh, definitely your dead fish,” said Jolly. “No complaints on that front.”
“Is that petrol?” said Dozy.
“Diesel,” said Jolly. “Subtle, but it’s there.”
“Trusap,” said Mumbles.
The other three dwarfs stared at him.
“He’s right, you know,” said Angry.
“Brilliant,” said Jolly. “He has the tongue of a god, that boy.”
“I might be able to help,” said Dozy. He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out the core of an apple that was so old it practically qualified as an antique. He dropped it into the cup and swirled it around with his finger.
“Try it now,” he said, noticing that his finger was starting to burn, always a good sign when it came to Spiggit’s.
Jolly did. For a moment he couldn’t see anything at all, and his head felt as though a piano had been dropped on it from a great height. He teetered on his heels so that only the shelf of brewing equipment stopped him from falling over. Slowly his vision returned, and he found some stability.
“Wonderful,” he croaked. “Just wonderful.”
Shan and Gath appeared at his shoulder.
“Just needed some rotten fruit,” explained Jolly. “Apples are usually best, although I say that you can’t beat a hint of strawberry. More rancid the better, mind, but it’s all a matter of personal taste.”
He handed the cup to Shan, who tried it and then passed it to Gath. They both winced, and reached out to support each other, then recovered.
“Hurh-hurh,” said Gath.
“Hurh-hurh,” said Shan.
And they held each other and laughed while the dwarfs looked on indulgently.
“It’s that Spiggit’s moment,” said Angry.
“That special moment,” said Dozy.
“That moment when you realize you’re going to survive,” said Jolly. “Probably. Magic, just magic…”
XXVII
In Which We Hear a Surprising Confession
SAMUEL, NURD, AND WORMWOOD, with Boswell dozing beside them, sat at the mouth of the cave and watched the acid rain fall. It really was acid, too: it had corroded a coin that one of the dwarfs had dropped, and it left a faint smell of burning in the air after it splashed on the ground. They had managed to get the Aston Martin and the ice-cream van into shelter, and Nurd had assured them all that they were safe for now. Nothing hunted or flew during the acid storms. Even demons didn’t care much for unnecessary pain, or at least not self-inflicted unnecessary pain.
“What do we do when it stops?” asked Samuel. “We can’t hide forever.”
“We know that there has to be a portal, and somehow Mrs. Abernathy is in control of it,” said Nurd. “If we find it, then we can send you all back.”
A look of what might almost have been grief passed across Nurd’s face, and was mirrored by Samuel. They were both thinking the same thing: after being separated and now, against all the odds, reunited, it just didn’t seem right that they should be forced to part again so soon. Even though Samuel desperately wanted to return home, and Nurd wanted him to be in a place of safety, their fondness for each other meant that the ending for which they both wished was destined to cause them great unhappiness. All of this remained unspoken yet understood between them.
Strangely, Wormwood knew it too, for as his master and Samuel silently considered the fact that the best-case scenario would see them divided again by time and space and various dimensions, he coughed softly and said:
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ll be glad to see the backs of those dwarfs. They have the potential to be quite, um, troublesome.”
Samuel and Nurd understood what Wormwood was trying to do, and were grateful to him.
“I don’t think it’s potential, Wormwood,” said Nurd. “They are ac
tively troublesome. They haven’t been potential trouble since before they were born.”
At that moment the dwarfs were happily sharing Shan and Gath’s new variation on Brew 19, helped by some frozen fruit salvaged from Dan’s van. Dan, who was resigned to the fact that his ice-cream business was unlikely to recover in the current circumstances owing to the consumption of all his ice cream and most of his chocolate, had joined in the tasting, and was now a little tipsy. Even Constable Peel had consented to a “small one,” with Sergeant Rowan’s permission, and the sergeant had found some unexpected common ground with Jolly, who had explained to him that the dwarfs’ criminal behavior was all society’s fault. Sergeant Rowan also believed this was true, mainly because society hadn’t found a way to lock them up and throw away the key.
Angry, meanwhile, was demonstrating to Constable Peel the intricacies of pickpocketing, although this was less out of a desire to share hidden knowledge with the policeman than because Constable Peel had caught Angry trying to steal his handcuffs.
“I can’t help it,” Angry was explaining in what might almost have been a sincere manner. “I was just born this way. My mum says she brought me home from the hospital and found a stethoscope and two thermometers in my diaper. I can find a way to steal anything, me. It’s a gift. Sort of.”
“I stole something once,” said Constable Peel suddenly.
Angry, along with Dozy and Mumbles, who had been listening to the conversation, looked taken aback.
“Really?” said Dozy.
Constable Peel nodded slowly. His cheeks burned with shame, and a little Brew 19 that had splashed on his skin had begun to irritate it.
“I was four,” he said. “I was sitting next to Briony Andrews in kindergarten. We always got two cookies at break, and I’d finished mine, but she had one left. So-”
Constable Peel covered his eyes with one hand and choked back a sob. Angry patted him on the back and tried not to laugh.
“Let it out,” he said. “Confession is good for the soul.”
Somehow, Constable Peel found the strength to go on.
“So-”
“I can see where this is going,” said Dozy.
“Ungbit,” said Mumbles.
“Absolutely,” said Dozy. “Briony Andrews is about to be one hundred percent down in the cookie department.”
“So-”
“Very tense, this,” said Angry.
“I stole her cookie!” concluded Constable Peel.
“No!” said Dozy, almost managing to sound surprised.
“Go on with you,” said Angry, not managing to sound surprised at all.
“Hardened criminal, you were,” said Jolly, joining in the fun. “Stealing a little girl’s cookie? That’s low, that is.”
“Devious,” said Dozy.
“Underhanded,” said Angry.
“Sneaky,” said Jolly.
“I know, I know,” said Constable Peel. “And it gets worse: I pretended she’d lost it. I even helped to organize the search party.”
“Oh, the hypocrisy!” said Angry, who actually thought that this did demonstrate a certain criminal cunning on the part of the juvenile Peel. It was almost admirable. He began to wonder if he might not have misjudged the policeman.
Constable Peel uncovered his face, revealing a fanatical gleam in his eye. “But when I went home that day, I vowed that never again would I engage in illegal activities, cookie-based or otherwise. From that day on I was a policeman in spirit, and the law was my mistress. I was Bob Peel, child lawman, and school-yard wrongdoers trembled at my approach.”
There was silence as the dwarfs considered this before Jolly said somberly:
“You must have been an absolute pain in the bum.”
Constable Peel stared at him. His chin trembled. His fists clenched. For a second there was murder in the air.
“You know, I absolutely was,” said Constable Peel, and their laughter was so loud that dust from the cave roof fell in their beer, improving it slightly.
Back at the cave mouth, Wormwood nibbled on a jelly bean as he, Nurd, and Samuel, joined by Sergeant Rowan, assessed their situation.
“The car has taken a beating,” said Wormwood. “And the ice-cream van isn’t going to last much longer. We’re also nearly out of fuel, and it will take time to synthesize some more.”
“Is there any good news?” asked Nurd.
“We still have jelly beans.”
“Will they power our car?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s not really very good news, then, is it?”
“No,” said Wormwood. “Not really. Oh look, the rain’s easing off.” He frowned. “That’s not good news either, is it?”
Nurd rubbed his eyes wearily. “No, it’s not.”
Soon the skies would once again be filled with eager, hostile eyes. Their enemies knew that they were in the area, and when the rain stopped they would begin to close in on them. They had no weapons, and little hope. There were days that just seemed to get harder and harder as they went on. Finding Samuel should have been a bright spot; after all, Nurd had spent so long wishing that he and his friend could be together again. Now that Samuel was here, Nurd just hoped to see him gone. Be careful what you wish for, he supposed: he hadn’t wanted Samuel to be dragged to Hell just so that they could have another conversation. The dwarfs and Constable Peel appeared by his side, and together the little group gazed out as the rainfall grew gentler, and then ceased entirely.
“This is our chance,” Nurd told them all. “It will stay dark and quiet for a while now that the rain has stopped. It’s the way of things here. There’ll be no lightning, and we can make some progress without being seen.”
“And the plan is that we find this woman, or demon, or whatever she is, and make her send us home?” said Angry.
“Or you find her, she tears you apart, and you don’t have to worry about getting home anymore,” said Nurd. “It depends, really.”
“On what?”
“On how fast you can run once she spots you.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan,” said Jolly. “And we’ve only got little legs. We’re not really built for speed.”
“That’s unfortunate,” said Nurd. “Speed always helps on these occasions.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re much of a runner either,” said Angry. “Big boots, bit of a belly. You’re going to have trouble outrunning this Mrs. Abernathy too, if she’s chasing us.”
“But I don’t have to outrun her,” said Nurd reasonably. “I just have to outrun you…”
XXVIII
In Which Everything Goes Horribly Wrong
PREPARATIONS BEGAN FOR THEIR departure while Samuel watched the clouds swirl. They moved less violently than before, as though worn out by their earlier efforts, the faces less visible now. There was a faint yellow glow to the sky, and although the landscape before him was not beautiful, it was at a kind of peace. The rocky hillside descended to more muddy bogs, across which stretched a stone causeway. As before, a stinking, heavy mist hung over the bogs, and Samuel felt sure that it would hide them from any watchful eyes above as they drove.
He thought about his mother. She would be worried about him. He had lost all track of time since he had arrived in this place, but at least a day and a night had gone by, and perhaps more. Then again, time was different here. He wasn’t even sure that there was time, not really. He supposed that, if eternity stretched before you, then minutes and hours and days would cease to have any meaning. But they had meaning for him: they represented moments spent separated from those whom he loved: from his mother, his friends, even his dad. Nurd was here, though, which was something.
Beside him, Boswell gave a little yip and got to his feet. He sniffed the air. His ears twitched, and he looked troubled.
“What is it, Boswell?” asked Samuel as a shadow fell upon him, and the Watcher clasped a hand over Samuel’s mouth so that he could not cry out, and pulled him into the air with a
great flapping of his wings. By the time Nurd and the others grasped what was happening, Samuel was already disappearing into low clouds, clasped tightly in the Watcher’s arms. Boswell ran down the hillside after them, barking and leaping up on his stubby back legs as though he might yet haul the massive red creature down.
But Samuel was gone, and it was left to Nurd to run to the little dog and hold him lest he get lost, or eaten, Boswell struggling all the time, desperate to follow Samuel, desperate to save him.
A craggy peak rose in the distance. Nurd thought that he saw a figure there, perched on the back of a basilisk. It was looking back at him, and he heard Mrs. Abernathy’s voice as clearly as if she were standing next to him:
“I will come for you, Nurd. I have not forgotten your meddling. For now, it is enough punishment for you to know that I have your friend, and I will sacrifice him to my master. And then it will be your turn.”
But Nurd did not care about her threats, or about himself. He cared only for Samuel, and how he might be rescued.
• • •
The Watcher flew high. It held Samuel, and Samuel held it, for Samuel feared falling more than he feared the creature holding him. Its skin smelled of sulfur and ash, and was pitted with the scars of deep, long-healed wounds. Samuel felt the creature’s consciousness probing at his own, trying to learn about him, exploring his strengths and his weaknesses. But as it tested him, so too it exposed something of itself, and Samuel was shocked by the strangeness of it, and he understood that even by the standards of Hell itself, this was a peculiar, solitary being, one entirely unlike him but also unlike any other entity in that place.
The Infernals aka Hell's Bells Page 17
