by Heide Goody
Something – some things! – wriggled past Rutspud’s feet. They were fast, snake-fast, but he caught a glimpse of them. Ribbons of sin, finally escaped from the font, raced through the scattered brickwork and smashed concrete in the direction of Boris.
Clovenhoof shouted up to Boris. “Hey, loser!”
“What?” bellowed the stupid sin creature.
“I don’t like the way you’re stomping all over my country.”
“Oh, you do care about something then?”
Clovenhoof spat. “Care? No. It’s just that I hadn’t quite got round to paying my building and contents insurance and I hate to see money wasted.”
Boris turned and kicked out casually, ripping the wall and roof off a concession stand, and sending brickwork and bottled drinks flying everywhere. This Boris thing acted like a petulant toddler, a quality Clovenhoof deeply admired in himself but couldn’t stand in others.
“Stop playing with the scenery and face me,” said Clovenhoof.
“You? You’re an embarrassment. A shadow.”
“I’m Jeremy ladies-drop-your-knickers Clovenhoof, the original sinner.”
Boris crouched suddenly, causing an earth tremor. “You say original, but what you mean is old.”
“Experienced.”
“Past it! I have come to replace a failed lord of sin.”
Clovenhoof stamped a hoof and bellowed back. “That’s it! Fight me, fuckwit! I will rip off your head, reach down your stupid excuse for a windpipe and rip off your balls. No wait! You haven’t got any, have you?”
“What?”
“How can you be the master of sin without balls?” Clovenhoof grabbed his crotch and thrust it forward. “Sin central, baby!”
“Maybe I’ll take yours then,” growled Boris and reached forward.
Boris came for his balls with thumb and forefinger. Even if each digit was the size of a man it was pretty degrading having someone attempting to pluck your dangling fruits with just their fingertips.
“Okay, okay,” said Clovenhoof. “That’s probably enough now.”
“Enough?”
“Enough stalling,” said Clovenhoof.
“Stalling? To what end?”
“This.” He raised his hand and yelled to the crew aboard Fort Floaty McBang-Bang. “FIRE!”
The yacht’s cannons, so recently transferred from Maldon Ferret’s back terrace, spat fire and smoke and an indeterminate number of cannon balls. Whether it would turn out to be an effective attack or just a distraction was uncertain, but it was certainly at least a distraction. As Boris turned, Clovenhoof picked up a brick from the rubble and, mildly amused to see it had his signature on it, ran forward to club this invader into oblivion.
He stood on the slope of the monster’s foot and whacked his brick into its shin. It made no discernible impact, physically or emotionally. Clovenhoof bashed again and again and then threw the brick away and just went at it with teeth and fingernails.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Joan and Rutspud hurried forward. The assault from the cannons seemed to be having as little effect on Boris as the paintballs and hurled throwing stars of the Hooflandian soldiers.
“What are we doing?” hissed Rutspud.
“Looking for an opportunity,” hissed Joan in reply.
“Opportunity to do what? It’s unkillable.”
Joan tripped on the uneven ground and looked to see what it was. Strangely, there was nothing. She crouched down and patted the earth.
“What?” asked Rutspud.
“I think an opportunity just showed up,” said Joan.
“Huh?”
Her hand brushed against soft imp skin. “Here! I’ve got it.” She held the bundle in her hands, even though she couldn’t see what was inside.
“The invisibility cloak?” said Rutspud.
She felt around, found an edge, and opened the cloak on the ground. Inside were six fragmentation grenades on a fabric bandolier.
“And we need this for our plan, yeah?” said Rutspud.
“There’s a difference between need and want,” she said. “And, yes, I have a plan.”
“Great. What is it? And does it involve me having to get personally involved in fighting this thing?”
“You don’t need to fight it,” she said.
“Good.”
“I just want you to antagonise it.”
Rutspud gave her a look.
“Just keep it occupied and don’t let it escape.”
Rutspud continued to give her a look.
“You know,” she tried, “there’s something noble about laying down one’s life for a good cause.”
“That’s lovely if you have a life to lay down,” grumbled Rutspud.
There was a splintering crunch. On the moat/wall, Clovenhoof’s presidential yacht was scattered to the four winds by a backhanded swing from Boris. Wood, life rings and cannon rained down across a wide area as crew members and artillerymen leapt for their lives and ducked for cover.
Clovenhoof did not feel well.
This was partly because he had just seen his beloved Fort Floaty McBang-Bang smashed apart like a Lego model. It was also partly because he was clinging to Boris’s leg for dear life as Boris tried to shake him off. But it was mostly because he had a mouth full of oozing, sickly sin monster and it didn’t taste good. Clovenhoof knew the taste of sin. He had savoured the richness of personal betrayal, the fine gravy that was cold-blooded murder, the piquant tang of selfish moral deviance. This, this creature had all the flavour of an adulterous tryst in a rain-lashed caravan park.
“Aw, crap, I do not feel good,” he murmured.
Sin sat heavy in his stomach. Except it wasn’t exactly sitting. It felt like it was throwing a party. It had opened up a drinks bar, hired in a bouncy castle and was breaking out the loudest punk records it could find. Tendrils of sin struck out from his core, worming their way through every vein, bone and passageway of his body.
“Not good.”
A vigorous kick at a moment of vulnerability and Clovenhoof went flying. He came down hard and nearly puked up his internal organs.
“Are you done already?” laughed Boris high above. “Have you bitten off more than you can chew?”
Clovenhoof groaned. “I’m going to get you a better speech-writer, mate. I’m going to kill you and then get you a better speech-writer.” He thought about it. “I’m going to kill you, take some indigestion medicine, lie down and die for a bit and then… fuck the speech-writer. That’ll do.”
Boris raised a foot to stomp Clovenhoof into oblivion. A pink paintball exploded on his dark brow.
“Oi!” shouted a demon from atop the moat/wall. Clovenhoof woozily recognised it as that cheeky little chap, Rutspud.
“I will deal with you next,” growled Boris.
“Deal with us now,” replied Rutspud and the heads of the valiant Boldmere Ponies display team popped over the top of the wall and the boys let loose with weapons dropped by the retreating Hooflandian army.
Joan found Nerys, Bishop Ken and a limping Ben working their way through the ruins, looking for any injured individuals among the rubble. Most people had wisely run far and run fast and so far they had only managed to find a solitary man who was weeping because, apparently, he had lost his special brick. Joan wasn’t sure if this was modern slang for something or not.
Joan grabbed Bishop Ken’s hand.
“You’re still a bishop, yes?” she said.
Bishop Ken tugged at his beard. “Ah, ah. I wouldn’t know. They might have found someone else in the interim and…”
“I’m a bishop,” said Nerys.
Joan looked at her skimpy outfit and diamante encrusted crook and then back to Ken.
“Are you still a priest?” she asked.
“Forever and always,” said Bishop Ken.
“Good,” said Joan. She held up her bandolier of grenades.
“Weapons have no effect on it,” said Nerys.
“Holy water might,”
said Joan. “That thing is sin, pure and simple.”
“Nothing about today is simple,” mumbled Ben.
“Sin is destroyed by absolution,” said Joan, “the touch of the divine.”
“You want to napalm it with holy water,” said Nerys.
“Holy water?” said Bishop Ken and turned around as though a handy font might suddenly spring into view.
Nerys bent down and picked up one of the many bottles of fizzy drink that scattered the area. “Can we bless this?”
“Yes, we can,” said Joan.
“I just don’t think any of this makes any sense anymore,” said Ben. “Maybe I have concussion.” He gazed upward at the hazy morning sun. “Or maybe I’m just dying. Are those angels?”
Joan looked to the sky and the host of winged silhouettes. “Yes, they are.”
Boris swept his arms across the top of the moat/wall, grabbing at his assailants. But the boys in their converted shopping trolleys were too nimble and swift. Pairs of runners kept the trolleys moving at speed while gunners front and rear let loose with paintballs, nerf pellets and good old-fashioned catapult shot.
Rutspud naturally kept clear of the actual action and scampered along the top of the wall, shouting warnings and trying to keep some sense of strategy. This wasn’t helped by the boys yelling random cool-sounding phrases at each other.
“Gamma formation! Gamma formation!”
“Bogey at four fifteen!”
“Rogue Five! I’m going in!”
By accident more than design, a wild swipe of Boris’s arm caught the underside of PJ McTigue’s trolley, capsized it and sent him and Jefri Rehemtulla rolling across the concrete. Rutspud ran forward. Jefri managed to leap aboard Spartacus Wilson’s craft before Rutspud even got close but he was able to assist PJ in getting to the dubious cover offered by a smashed chunk of Clovenhoof’s yacht.
PJ hissed and stared at the bloody graze on his knee.
“It stings, man! It really stings!”
Rutspud poked it.
“Don’t touch it!” said the boy and sucked his teeth at the pain. “Do you think they’ll have to amputate?”
“Hard to say,” said Rutspud.
Over the edge of the wall, Rutspud could see Clovenhoof lying on the ground. The old devil clutched his belly as though he had been stabbed in the gut. Stranger, Clovenhoof’s flesh seemed to be rippling, bulging, as though he was about to burst with the offspring of some terrible parasitic insect.
“What the Hell…?”
The pain hadn’t left Clovenhoof’s stomach but it had changed in tone and quality. It was, he realised, the ache of muscles that hadn’t been used in ages. It was the creak and pull of a body finding its old strengths again. Had he so easily forgotten what this had felt like?
Sin. Hell had always been overflowing with the stuff and it had always found its way to him. It was the cocaine on his cornflakes. It was the four heaped teaspoons of sugar in his tea. Sin. He had indeed forgotten what it was like to be filled with the stuff. Somewhere along the line, it had simply seeped away from him, used up in dribs and drabs until he had become – what? A mere imp of mischief? A blathering fool? Nothing but a grumpy and dirty old man rotting in English suburbia?
He rose to his feet effortlessly. New strength coursed through him.
Boris’s attention was still elsewhere. Good.
Clovenhoof ran forward, grabbed at the monster’s leg where he had bitten it before and ripped off a chunk of sin flesh. Boris gasped and looked down. Clovenhoof rammed the black meat in his gob and barely chewed it before he swallowed.
“What are you doing, little man?” spat Boris. “Won’t you just lay down and die?”
“Little man?” Clovenhoof flexed and grew, drawing in mass and muscle from the sin energy. “Little man?! I’M FUCKING SATAN, SUNSHINE!”
“And now Jeremy’s grown into a giant as well,” said Ben, in the light conversational manner of someone describing what they assumed must be a dream.
Gabriel touched down lightly next to Joan. Even fully extended, you could hardly see the mends that had been made to his shotgun-ravaged wings. If one looked closely one could see a glint of sparkly thread and just one or two concealing sequins but the tailor-angel had truly worked a wonder on them.
“Update, Joan,” he said.
“Right,” she said and took a deep breath. “This here is Hooflandia, an illegal breakaway state created by Jeremy Clovenhoof. Boris came up through the church which is that mostly demolished building over there. The locals have tried to engage them with artillery fire from a now-destroyed battleship. Rutspud is currently directing a gang of local youths in shopping trolleys to hold Boris in place with distracting attacks. Conventional weapons appear to have little impact. I believe that Clovenhoof has now become infected with some of the sin and has also grown to monstrous proportions, perhaps regaining some of the powers he previously held as Satan. Holy water and its powers of absolution clearly help disperse the sin. Rutspud used it to cleanse me of Boris’s filth. I’m working on a plan to disperse Boris for good with a combination of fragmentation grenades and bottles of water, well, caffeinated cola drink, blessed by Bishop Kenneth Iscansus here.”
Bishop Ken gave Gabriel a jaunty wave, like a man who was used to greeting archangels every day.
“I’m a bishop too,” said Nerys.
Joan ignored her.
“I’m Ben,” said Ben.
“Good,” said Gabriel. “That all makes sense.”
“It really doesn’t,” said Ben. “I think I’m having a psychotic episode.”
“Oh, by my balls, this feels good!” laughed Clovenhoof and planted a solid punch on Boris’s face, temporarily squashing his proud nose into putty.
“A proper fight at last!” roared Boris and swung back at him. Clovenhoof didn’t even duck. Each blow was a sudden and powerful affirmation of who he was, of who he had once been. He was four storeys high and happier than he’d been since he discovered a bottle of barbecue lighter fluid and set fire to all the wheelie bins in a half mile radius.
“I was once the Great Dragon, you know!” he bellowed. “I rebelled against the Almighty. A third of Heaven’s forces were at my back, prepared to follow me to the Throne!”
“You lost!” sneered Boris.
“I nearly won though!”
Energy crackled and pumped through Clovenhoof’s limbs. Every scrape and every gouge transferred more of Boris’s evil power to him.
“I used to be someone!” he yelled.
“No more!” replied Boris.
Bronze spears rained down on them from above. A flock of angels circled them at height, weaving as close as they dared whilst still staying beyond the considerable reach of the two titans.
“Those gits were the ones who stopped me!” cried Clovenhoof and tried to swat angels from the sky.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
As Clovenhoof diverted his attention to the angels above, Boris took advantage of the moment, plunged its hand into the top of the moat/wall not twenty yards from Rutspud and yanked free the embedded keel of Fort Floaty McBang-Bang.
“Get down!” cried Rutspud, shielding young PJ with his body as concrete debris rained about.
Boris swung the keel at Clovenhoof like a club. Clovenhoof was clearly too buzzed with his own potency to give it much attention. This was undoubtedly a mistake. Potent or not, a metal keel to the face was enough to send his brains spinning and put a dent in one of his horns.
“Gah! You bastard!” spat Clovenhoof, stumbling away.
Rutspud saw a lump of black sin-spit hit the ground. It immediately galvanised itself into a mobile lump and oozed towards Boris. Whatever pseudo-scientific force held the sin beast together, his attraction was greater than that of Satan. However much Satan had regained his powers, Boris still sat at the bottom of the gravity well towards which all foul deeds ran.
Clovenhoof’s stagger only came to a stop beside the presidential palace, the much extended and built
-upon Boldmere Oak. He shook his head to clear it and then looked around for a weapon with which to fight back.
“Ah-hah!” he declared loudly, spotting one.
“Don’t you dare!” yelled Nerys. “That’s my popemobile!”
The titanic Clovenhoof picked up the bus by its rear end and swung it with more force than accuracy. It crunched into Boris’s shoulder and sheared in two. The front end went sailing into the moat/wall with enough power to make utter scrap of it all.
“But you’re not the pope,” said Joan.
“No,” said the woman, her face screwed up in an incandescent and entirely un-papal snarl. “I’m a bloody archbishop!” Nerys slapped Bishop Ken on the shoulder. “If absolution can blast this thing apart, I reckon we can take it apart right now.”
“What are we going to do?” said Ken, confused.
“We’re going to forgive it, Ken,” said Nerys.
“Oh, right.”
“Forgive it to death. Come on!”
Joan arranged the bandolier of grenades and blessed cola bottles across her shoulder and prepared to wrap the invisibility cloak around her.
Ben still sat, dazed, on the ground beside.
“Are you going to be okay?” she said.
He waved her concern away nonchalantly. “Pfff. I’m totally fine. Oh, look, here comes a man riding on a deer.”
He wasn’t wrong. St Hubertus had entered the already busy field of combat riding Hirsch in the manner of a drunkard who didn’t trust his steed to steer him straight.
“What in Heaven’s name are you doing here?” said Joan.
“Fighting the good fight, baby!” he slurred. “Righting wrongs. Bringing the party to the people.”
“You are inebriated.”
St Hubertus raised a green bottle of spirits. “Just a little Dutch courage.” He peered at the bottle. “German courage.” He frowned. “North European courage of some description.”
