by Tony Moyle
*****
David was stumped. His only leads seemed like dead ends. He was no closer to finding out why Herb had died. Dr. King had disappeared shortly after the funeral, and Nash had become so suspicious he’d left their conversation in a panic. The next three names on his list were either complete unknowns, like Baltazaar, or had yet to be located, like Victor. David was starting to feel that the odds of completing his tasks before his twelfth birthday were slim. And then what? What would he even do if he completed them all? What would life be like without a purpose?
There was only one notable highlight from his conversation with Nash. Just one thing he’d picked up that might be useful. One word. Cornwall. It was a long shot but what options did he have? He could go back to law school and forget the whole campaign until another day, or he could keep trying whilst his vacation continued. Cornwall was significant because he knew Byron had suggested it was a good place to hide Faith. Nash had been hell-bent on protecting Faith, even though John had persuaded him not to. Love doesn’t tend to listen to logic.
Those two minuscule pieces of data had been the stimulant for David’s current course of action. His car was proceeding down the M5 motorway, a short distance behind Nash’s black hire car. He kept pace with the ex-rockstar as he weaved dangerously between lorries and trucks. Not bad for a pre-teen. If he was right, Nash would take him all the way to Cornwall and just possibly some new lines of inquiry. If he was wrong, then it was the longest wild goose chase in history.
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN -
FINDING FAITH
“What did you find out?” asked Elsie, as she pointlessly attempted to pick invisible bugs out of her plastic skin. The pigeons had returned from their excursion far faster than anyone had expected.
“They’re coming down here,” replied Sandy.
“Who are?” asked Abe.
“Burn you…shock you…melt you…poke you…I’m ever so sorry…ha ha ha…mugs,” stuttered John.
“What John is trying to say, rather insensitively, is that all the demons are coming down here. Which means there won’t be any up there. The time to strike is now,” said Sandy.
It wouldn’t be possible for all of them to travel to level twelve the way the pigeons had previously done. The last time he studied them, ox couldn’t fly. Sandy had devised a plan for using his troops to maximum effect while personally maintaining a distance as far from the cat as feasibly possible. The elephants in the room, and thankfully Sandy didn’t have one of those on his team, were the demons. What if they had to face one?
“Ok, gather around, everyone,” said Sandy needlessly, given the number of places available to hide on the back of a whale. “We’re going to split into three units. My unit, which will include John and Ian, will head to level twelve to recover Faith’s shadow. Units two and three will attempt to distract the demons when they come here. At the appropriate time, unit three, Roger and Vicky, will move on to the front gate and the Soul Catcher to clear the way for our arrival. We will meet you there once we have been to the library.”
“Bloody newcomers,” said Vicky. “They all think they know about this place. Well, I’ve been here for longer than any of you…”
“Ahem, I think you’ll find I was here the longest,” said Roger.
“Fuck off, cat,” said Vicky, shooting a sticky web in his face.
“I’m only going in unit three if I get to lead it,” demanded Roger, his voice slightly muffled from the spider’s web around his chops.
“No way. I don’t deal with cats, let alone follow them,” replied Vicky.
“I really don’t have time for this!” shouted Sandy. “The demons are coming now! You’ll just have to sort it out for yourself.”
Vicky and Roger avoided each other’s eyes.
“What I’d like to know, from our so-called leader, is how we’re going to deal with any demons if we meet them,” said Vicky.
“It’s a fair point,” replied Sandy. “We do need to be prepared for it. How many demons do we know about?”
“I saw one made from mushrooms once,” said Elsie, giggling away to some personal in-joke.
“Well, that’s a start. How do you kill a mushroom?” asked Sandy to the group.
There was a lot of head-scratching from the animals as they considered the scenario. Apart from Roger obviously. He knew but was disinclined to answer. It wasn’t just about what might stop a mushroom demon, it was also whether they’d have the means to do it.
“Holy water would do it,” said Abe.
“And do you have any?” asked Sandy.
“No.”
“You could fry him in a bit of oil,” said Elsie.
“No pan, no oil and come to think of it, no massive gas hob,” replied Sandy. “It would help if you thought before answering.”
“A demon with thrush…sicko…” shouted John.
“I,” started Gary.
“Yes,” said Sandy encouragingly.
“Would.”
“Go on,” said the group in mass expectation.
“Have.”
“Loved to have answered more quickly?” prompted Sandy sarcastically.
“No,” continued Gary.
“Idea…that’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?” sighed Sandy.
“Yes.”
Sandy shook his head in realisation that this was the worst brainstorming session since Coca-Cola executives got together and decided they needed a new recipe.
“Ok, so we’re stumped on the mushroom guy. What about one made of gold? I think I saw one like that loading the vessols on the Soul Catcher once,” said Sandy.
“Oh that one’s easy,” said Roger. “The gold ones are very susceptible to hypnotism.”
“You’ve hypnotised a demon, have you?!” said Sandy.
“Easy. Cats do it naturally. I can’t tell you how, it’s just within us. He probably still thinks he’s an avocado after the last time he crossed me.”
“I think you’ve been hypnotised,” replied Sandy. “Any other thoughts?”
“Holy water,” said Abe confidently.
Sandy contemplated the idea that he’d acquired some sort of powerful freak beacon that drew useless cretins to him. It was the only explanation. Firstly Ian had stuck to him like a magnet, and now five other candidates were attempting to displace him as the most irritating individual since the discovery of the whoopee cushion. Ian could sense his moment to climb up the league table.
“We don’t need to fight them,” said Ian.
“What?” said Sandy, not expecting any pearls of wisdom anytime soon.
“Well, they’re only looking for John, aren’t they? They don’t know about the rest of us. So as long as we keep him hidden we should be ok.”
“Yes…but how do we do that?” said Sandy. “You’d struggle to keep John hidden at an epilepsy convention.”
“Hear me out,” said Ian.
Sandy immediately hated himself for nodding.
“As far as we know, all the demons are made out of an element of some sort.”
“Go on…” prompted Sandy.
“Why don’t we disguise ourselves as a demon?”
“And how are you going to hide an ox inside a demon costume? I haven’t seen many demons wearing shoes in the shape of a giant ox.”
“Well, maybe not all of us, but if you and John are going upstairs, maybe a few of us could build a costume down here.”
“There are many issues with your plan, Ian, but I’ll just pick one out at random. What are we going to make a demon costume out of?”
“Leaves?” said Ian hopefully.
“There’s no leaf demon.”
“Ian’s a tit…loser,” blurted John in between bouts of habit reversal. “What do…don’t tell them…demons hate…love…hate most of all…?”
The animals looked around at each other surprised that John had managed an almost completely coherent sentence.
“Holy water,” said Abe.
“Sha
dows…” said John with a cough and a twitch.
“What’s your point, John?” asked Sandy.
“Release…arse weasel…the shadows…bad idea…”
“But what will happen if we release all the shadows?” asked Abe.
“All hell will break loose…god bothering donkey…that was mean I apologise…ox-y-moron…haha…”
“I like John’s plan more than Ian’s,” said Sandy.
*****
As the water of the lake swirled around the banks, like a bucket of water being swung around in the air, there was a palpable sense of anxiety. Very few of the senior demons had ever visited level zero, and even less knew how it worked. A few dozen different elements rubbed shoulders as each demon, in their own inimitable way, descended through the hole that separate the two lowest levels of Hell.
When your normal vista consisted of rock, metal bars and tormented souls in plastic bodies, it wasn’t surprising that the demons stood mesmerised by their current surroundings. Some, like Mr. Fungus, sat dewy-eyed as if he’d discovered a secret nirvana that had been purposely kept from him. Others cringed at the sight of the unabated life residing here unrestrained. It felt to them like a place of rebellion, a place that lacked order and discipline. Where was the punishment? What was the point if you didn’t get to revel in a bit of sadistic fun?
The bottom of the ladder, that only some of the demons had needed to use, came to an end on a hillock in the forest biome. In the valley below, trees ascended into the air like prison bars, blocking a view of multi-landscapes that disappeared over the horizon. The demons squirmed as the foreign nature of grass and weeds weaved around their toes. Everyone that ‘had’ feet and toes, that was. Mr. Aqua just felt like an over-elaborate sprinkler system. Primordial was waiting for them at the bottom of the ladder like a schoolteacher orchestrating a bunch of unruly students on a geography trip.
“Right,” he said in a gravelly voice designed to draw their attention away from a number of residents sitting nervously in the undergrowth, frightened by this mass influx of new guests. “There are some rules.”
“Rules?” said Mr. Volts, who was currently scorching the piece of grass underneath him, hoping he wasn’t already breaking one of them.
“Yes. This is my domain. Do I come into your offices and tell you what to do? Do I mess around with your patients?”
The demons all shook their heads, thankful that he didn’t. Of all the demons, Primordial was misunderstood the most.
“Rule one, you can’t punish the creatures that live here.”
“Aww, why not?”
“Was that you, Mr. Virus?” asked Primordial.
“No, I think it was Mr. Noir,” replied a second voice that no one could locate.
Only a few demons were invisible to their colleagues. One was Mr. Virus, who was essentially a mass of microscopic virions. None of them knew how big he was, where he was or indeed whether or not he was responsible whenever they felt under the weather. The second was Mr. Noir. He was even more of an enigma. Unlike Mr. Virus, who you could at least sense when he passed by you, Mr. Noir’s very existence was based on a load of assumptions.
Stuff is an interesting concept. Stuff is everywhere. We sit on it. We eat it. We sometimes bump into it. But is stuff always obvious? What if some stuff wasn’t really stuff at all? At least not as we understand it. What if we owned stuff, but we didn’t know where it was? Not like misplacing the TV remote for a couple of weeks, that’s just lost stuff. Just because you can’t see some of your stuff doesn’t mean it’s not there. Even now you’re surrounded by a load of dark stuff that sits somewhere between the other stuff.
Mr. Noir must exist because strange shit kept happening. Why did stuff in Hell became heavier than it was meant to be for no obvious reason? Why did the light from torches bend in an unusual way? All of these factors made the demons believe that someone was responsible. There was a fundamentally more obvious reason for this belief, though. Sometimes he spoke. Not often, though. Mr. Noir wasn’t great at interacting with others. In fact he didn’t really interact with himself. Mr. Noir was built from dark matter, or at least that’s what he claimed anyway. Unlike all the other demons, who generally had the good grace to stay in one place at one time, he was everywhere. Anywhere without stuff in fact.
“Mr. Noir, nice to have you with us,” replied Primordial.
“I’m always with you,” replied a voice.
“If you say so,” replied Mr. Gold, making a madman sign with his hand.
“As I was saying,” continued Primordial. “Rule one. No one punishes the creatures other than me. If you find John, then you can restrain him only. Is that understood?”
Everyone nodded and a deep sigh pierced the space between stuff.
“Rule two. Don’t damage anything. You might be tempted to speed up your search for John by setting fire to trees or blowing down habitats or flooding valleys. It took ages to get level zero like this and I’d appreciate not having a massive cleaning bill.”
“What about a few thunderbolts?” said Mr. Volts.
“No. Rule three. We will go about this systematically. If everyone just runs amok in every direction, John will be able to evade capture.”
“I can’t really do that, Primordial, I’m sort of everywhere,” replied Mr. Noir.
“You should have already found him, then, shouldn’t you?” stated Primordial. “We start here in the forest biome. Once that’s done we move on to the desert biome.”
“I can’t go there,” replied Mr. Aqua. “I have a note.”
“Rule four, there are no notes. You do what I tell you. If you do happen to interact with one of the reincarnates you are welcome to question them.”
“I tend to use Chinese burns along with my questions,” said Mr. Bitumen.
“Not here you don’t. These creature are very tame. Most just want an easy life so they won’t give you any trouble. If we get a move on it shouldn’t take us long to find John.”
“I think we get it, Primordial. We’ve already wasted time listening to your rules,” said Asmodeus disparagingly. “Any more?”
“Rule five. Don’t walk on the grass.”
Once a place of greenery, the hill was a smorgasbord of scorch marks, small fires and patches of filth. Everyone looked guilty.
*****
For the second time the pigeons carried John between them. Up the cliff faces of Hell they juggled him until they reached the gap between level twelve and the barrier. They flew it with much less trepidation than they had done previously. They knew access was possible and no one would be there to greet them. They squeezed through the gap as close to the rock as possible to avoid the unknown consequences of coming into contact with the translucent barrier.
In the distance the large table and scattered thrones occupied the centre of the floor, just as John had remembered it. The experience of being here made him deeply uncomfortable. So much effort had been expended to remove himself from this part of Hell and now he was back. Of the two parts of his character, one was more animated about it than the other. In this place his world had fallen apart. Here the truth had been revealed. A truth that still hung in the air like an apparition waiting to haunt him. A searing anger boiled inside him until it had nowhere else to go.
“Bastards…cruel, vicious, soul thirsty…fuckers…I will destroy them…REVENGE…!” shouted John as he ran full pelt towards the table in the distance.
“John, come back!” shouted Sandy, flying behind, but unable to catch up.
When John reached Asmodeus’s throne, positioned at the head of the table, his rage attempted and failed to push it over. Not deterred, he unsuccessfully tried to gnaw chunks out of its wooden legs.
“John, stop,” pleaded Sandy.
“They…gulp…took everything…arseholes…from me…” replied John, weeping.
“Then let’s take it back,” replied Sandy.
“I’m not sure…gulp…I can…I feel sympathy on top…arse...of
anger.”
“Sympathy! You don’t need to feel that, John. You’ve been wronged, we all have. Make them suffer, make them beg to get it back.”
“I…feel…I’m being…cough…used.”
“We all are. We always have been. What about Faith? She’s been used, too. Don’t you want to get her back?”
“Yes…nasty demons…must be punished…let’s tear it down…”
“There’s a good lad, you know it makes sense. Now let’s find Faith.”
The stone shelves that housed the lines of shadows hidden inside glass houses stretched out in front of them. Each six-inch-high bulbous flask housed the same deep blue electricity in its stomach. None had labels. Some were more boisterous than others, jerking in their position in a vain attempt to be noticed. Was there any order to how they were stacked? Were the lower ones the first to arrive? There was no way of knowing if there was any system to this disorder?
They approached the bottom row, the only one they could reasonably access. To distinguish what was happening inside, Sandy placed an ear to a vase. A familiar argument ensued inside the glass as two sides of a personality were attempting to gain advantage over the other. Sandy whispered a question into the glass and, as if taken by surprise, it jumped into the air a fraction. He listened to the garbled reply.
“This one isn’t Faith,” said Sandy.
“How do you know?” asked Ian.
“It told me,” replied Sandy, “in between some pretty experimental swearing.”
The three of them followed the line of shadows, stopping to ask each a simple question. Not all the responses were delivered in the same manner. It was clear that these shadows had varying degrees of animosity and charity. It made sense to Sandy. If these souls were dragged from their humans before their time, they might have a balance towards negative emotions or a balance towards positive emotions. They would all have elements of both, but not all would be as dangerous as others. As they continued to talk to the shadows, Sandy made a mental note of the really angry ones.
