by Heide Goody
Joan of Arc’s hand was in the air.
“Joan,” said the Lord of Hell.
“You shouldn’t use the word ‘brainstorm’,” said the teenage saint.
Lord Peter blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s offensive to people with epilepsy.”
Lord Peter shrugged indifferently. “Are there any epileptics here?”
“I don’t think that’s the point. And you shouldn’t call them epileptics. They are people who have epilepsy, not epileptics. They are not defined by their condition.”
“Fine,” snapped Lord Peter. “Let’s not brainstorm the matter. Let’s ...”
“Create a thought-shower,” said Joan.
“Seriously? Not an idea-blizzard? Or a mind-drizzle? Nonsense. Come on, who has ideas?”
Rutspud looked around the table at a great many faces that were clearly too afraid to speak up.
“Lewis.”
Satan’s balls! thought Rutspud. The daft man had his hand up. Rutspud saw Belphegor try to activate one of the switches on his wheelchair, but the table was in the way. Was it the wheel-spikes or the electric cattle-prod? No matter; it was too late. Lewis was speaking.
“I think we can cool Hell right down with some natural resources from earth. All we need is the entire polar ice cap, which should bring our temperature down to what it was before this started,” said Lewis.
Lord Peter froze, pen in hand.
“Riiight,” he said, and wrote ice on the chart. “Did you have any thoughts on how we'd manage to get the entire polar ice cap here?”
“No,” said Lewis.
“No,” repeated Peter, in the tone of someone who would be returning to this later. “So do you have any further thoughts?”
“Oh, yes,” said Lewis. “I've got another idea. If every inhabitant of Hell was to blow really hard in the same direction at the same time, we could create a strong wind and disperse the heat.”
“Disperse it to where?” asked St Paul with a smirk.
“Somewhere else,” said Lewis, rolling his eyes. “I don't have all the details, obviously. However, I am working on a wardrobe that could provide a portal –”
“Enough!” shouted Peter. “Who else has an idea? Hodshift, what would you recommend?”
“Me?” said Hodshift, quaking. “Me?”
“Yes, how should we prepare for the coming days? Tell us what you recommend.”
“Well, if you really want my honest opinion,” said Hodshift, “I'd be handing out hard hats to everyone, and evacuating them to the farthest reaches of Limbo for when the ’ole bloody lot blows.”
“Unacceptable,” declaimed Thomas Aquinas loudly. “The whole purpose of this meeting is to keep Hell’s problems within Hell’s borders. We don’t want to shift any part of this problem into Limbo, least of all a bunch of infernal refugees!”
Lord Peter wrote the words refugees and shift it into Limbo on the board.
“Those weren’t bloody suggestions!” shouted the rotund saint.
“All ideas are valid,” said Lord Peter smoothly, “and your contributions are very welcome. Besides, I don't think we should take Hodshift too literally. I certainly wouldn't want to incite an unhelpful level of panic. I think we should take some other suggestions. Come on, Gabriel, do you have any ideas?”
“I think you've all clearly overlooked the most obvious solution,” said Gabriel, “which is the power of prayer. It's a good job you called us when you did, quite frankly. We can get straight on with some concentrated praying.”
Peter wrote prayer and hard hats on the flip chart. He circled the word prayer and nodded to the room.
“Well, that's clearly a quick win,” he said happily.
“Who would they be praying to?” Rutspud whispered to Belphegor.
“The Almighty, of course.”
“Well, He lives in Heaven, doesn’t he? Why don’t they just go to His office or whatever and ask Him?”
“I don’t know. I’m just a demon,” said Belphegor.
“I think perhaps we can form a focus group to take care of the praying,” said Gabriel. “I think St Thomas is a must from our side. Perhaps one of your Research and Development team should be involved?”
Rutspud studied his notes carefully and tried to become invisible.
“Let’s see. We could perhaps spare Rutspud. He's making quite a name for himself,” said Lord Peter. “You'll find him a dynamic team player,”
Rutspud felt his world crashing down. He knew he couldn't withstand a concentrated onslaught of prayer, no demon could.
“With the greatest of respect, sir,” he said. “I'd quite like to follow up on some solutions that I've been working on in the lab.”
“What might these solutions be, Rutspud?” asked Lord Peter.
“It's a bit early to say,” said Rutspud. “It involves, ah, non-Newtonian structures.”
Peter stared at Rutspud for a long moment.
“Right, well perhaps Lewis could join the focus group,” he said. “I shall be very interested to monitor the progress of your idea, Rutspud. I'll pop round tomorrow. Nero, be sure to add that to my schedule.”
Rutspud smiled at Lord Peter and hoped sincerely that his eyes did not betray the panic that boiled inside him.
Manfred was at the head of a group of monks walking through the snow carrying timber and supplies. Apparently, the only supplies Brother Henry was capable of carrying were a kettle and a teapot which he carried one-handed on a tray. Brother Henry deftly unfurled an extension lead behind with the other hand as he walked. Manfred shrugged lightly. It would be at least encouraging for everyone to have hot drinks as they worked.
Brother Gillespie trotted over to Manfred.
“Do you really think this is the time to be working outside?” he asked. “There's snow on the ground. I can't have everyone laid up in the infirmary with a cold.”
Manfred noticed that, as usual, Brother Gillespie was the only one who seemed to actually have a cold.
“Well, I hope you put on an extra layer, brother,” he said. “We'll soon warm up when we start work. Quite honestly, I can think of nothing finer on a bright day like this! You should have seen the winters in Bayerisch Eisenstein. If we'd stopped work for a bit of snow, we'd never have gotten anything done!”
Manfred stopped and faced the others.
“Let us lay the supplies down here, brothers. I have the plans drawn up, and I will mark out the position of the base. Those of you with shovels, please be kind enough to clear the space that I indicate.”
The monks spent much of the morning levelling the site and forming the base of what would, according to Manfred’s designs, be a large shed-like structure. The interesting feature of this large shed was that part of it would project over the edge of the cliff, counterbalanced by the weight of the structure and several anchoring rods.
“Hey! Who threw that?”
Manfred looked up to see Brother Henry dusting snow from the back of his head. He saw Brothers Cecil and Roland clutching each other and laughing from the path. Henry looked around in confusion and bent back to the task in hand. Manfred saw Brother Cecil form another snowball and throw it with remarkable accuracy at Henry's head.
Henry looked at Brother Gillespie, who was sorting through a box of tools.
“Right,” he said. “You asked for this.”
“What?” sniffed the innocent infirmarian.
Brother Henry picked up a huge, unformed handful of snow and dumped it on Brother Gillespie's head. He shook the collar of Gillespie's robe to ensure that it went down his back. The high-pitched squealing and cavorting that followed drew everyone’s attention.
“What’s with Brother Gillespie?” asked Brother Desmond.
“Is he dancing?” asked Brother Vernon.
“A Beegees tribute,” nodded Brother Terry sagely.
“Enough of that, that's not –” Manfred was cut off as a snowball erupted in his face.
By the time he co
uld see again, there were snowballs flying back and forth in a frenzy. There were shrieks of shock, delight and general monkish glee. He wondered briefly whether to take the moral high ground, and then saw that Cecil and Roland were still throwing the snowy missiles from the path, apparently unnoticed by the other monks. He made himself a pile of neatly-formed snowballs and threw them in quick succession at the geriatric monks.
“Attack old men, would you?” shouted Brother Cecil.
Brother Roland stuck out his tongue and the two of them retreated down the path, heading for the warm fire in the monastery and laughing all the way.
“Let me have a go!”
Brother Henry was now sliding down the slope on his metal tea tray, while Brothers Desmond and Terry looked on with undisguised envy. Several monks glanced around for suitable toboggans. Manfred leapt sideways as Gillespie hurtled blindly down on Manfred’s metal toolbox.
“Brother Clement, it's not like you to be so ... how can I say this, playful,” said Manfred, as Clement sailed down the slope on a sheet of plywood.
“I'm enjoying a profound moment of religious contemplation,” called Clement, from the bottom of the slope.
“No you're not, you're making a snow angel,” yelled Henry, racing back up to have another go on his tea tray.
Manfred saw that Clement had tumbled off the plywood and was, indeed, flapping arms and legs to make a Clement-shaped angel in the snow.
“Come now, brothers,” called Manfred. “Is this any way for men of God to behave? What if Father Eustace were to –”
“Shiny bottoms!” yelled the abbot, flying past on a large bronze plate, which Manfred suspected was the possibly priceless twelfth century platter from the church.
“I think we should perhaps take a break from the building work,” said the prior, largely to himself.
“You’ve got to help me.”
“Help you, Rutspud?” Stephen swivelled round on his chair in the library. “Help you? You gave us all a dose of your forget-me potion last night. I can’t imagine what horrors you must have unleashed on us to resort to that.”
Rutspud scowled.
“I didn’t do that. You did.”
“Did I?”
Rutspud nodded vigorously.
“We ran out, I gave you the potion and you must have –”
“What happened to your arm?” said Stephen.
Rutspud rolled his very expressive eyes. “I can understand why you gave some of the water to the other monks, but why did you drink some yourself?”
Stephen shrugged. “Don’t know. Can’t remember. But you need my help. What’s the matter?”
“What's not the matter?” said Rutspud, and threw himself down in a chair in exasperation. “I've lost Potter, for one thing. I think she's wandering about up here somewhere.”
“Oh, no,” said Stephen. “That's not good.”
“No,” said Rutspud, “but that's not the worst thing. Lord Peter is coming to see me. He's coming because I'm supposed to have some sort of solution to Hell's overheating problem. Me!”
“Why you?”
“I told him I had. It was the only way I could get out of being on a praying focus group. Long story. Tesla's got a theory, but it depends on us getting some massive pipes up those stairs, and, yes, on top of everything else, I'm still missing an arm.”
“I don't really know how demons, er, fit together. If we find your arm, can you just put it back on?”
“I'll get one of my gang to sew it on for me,” said Rutspud. “We recycle demon parts all of the time, never known an appendage to stop working. I can sort of feel my arm right now.”
“What? Surely not. What can you feel?” asked Stephen.
Rutspud concentrated.
“I can feel something like wind moving across it I think. Quite cold. The fingers are in the grass. It's definitely outside, somewhere on the island. High up probably.”
“Oh. Let's go and look for it, then. Pop on a habit, you'll pass for a scrawny monk at a distance. Anyway, what pipes?”
“Eh?”
“Tesla’s plan with pipes.”
“Yes, he thinks we can use sea water to run some sort of heat exchanger. We need a pipe to take seawater down the stairs –”
“Seawater? As in our seawater?”
“Well, we certainly don’t have much liquid water in Hell, mate. Yes, one pipe to pump the water down and another coming up to release steam.”
“Really?” said Stephen. “It all sounds a little bit noticeable. A great big pipe with steam coming out of it is not going to escape detection round here.”
“Tesla reckons he can time it so the steam won't come out until it’s convenient. What time do you lot all go off and have a little pray?”
“Vespers is at sunset. That’s about six o’clock at the moment.”
“Six it will be, then.”
“It’s not going to be some great noisy trumpety blast, is it?”
“Nah. Strong but silent. Just like me.”
“If you say so,” said Stephen. “So, what are we waiting for? It sounds as though we can sort all of this out. We'll go and find Potter, and your arm, then you can get these pipes in place in time for Peter's visit.”
“But what about Lord Peter finding out about the stairs?” said Rutspud.
“Why would he?” said Stephen.
“Well, he'd just go, 'Oh, where does this pipe go?' and he couldn't possibly miss them.”
“Are you telling me that a demon of your cunning and expertise couldn't knock up a big box, with a pipe going into it and a pipe coming out of it, that looked as though it was doing all the good work inside it, with some sort of science or something?”
“A big box?” said Rutspud incredulously.
“Yes.”
“I just paint up a magic box and tell him that all the amazing stuff is going on inside?”
“Yes,” said Stephen.
“Well, it's so daft that it might work, I suppose.”
Manfred found Bastian walking back up to the monastery after seeing Carol off on Owen's boat.
“You seem to get on well with Ms Well-Dunn,” said Manfred.
“Do I?” asked Bastian, flushing slightly. “I hadn't noticed.”
Manfred wondered what he meant by that, but it would have to wait.
“Now, Bastian, we have a small window of opportunity,” he said. “The brothers have returned to the monastery for refreshments. I have made a new cinnamon cake to keep them distracted. It seems an ideal time to dispose of Brother Lionel.”
“Yes,” said Bastian, the colour wiped from his face. “Of course,” he said heavily.
“I've left some shovels up by the bird hide,” said Manfred. “We’ll collect Lionel and then we can get digging.”
Manfred had also positioned a wheelbarrow near to the kitchen door. They went inside and lifted the lid of the chest freezer. The dead monk lay within, a bag of garden peas wedged under his neck.
“That coating of frost he's got is really quite unnerving,” said Bastian after a moment. “It looks as if he's been dusted with icing sugar.”
“Yes, that is strange,” said Manfred and then paused. Having a dead monk in the freezer was sufficiently strange; anything else was just decoration.
They struggled to prise Brother Lionel from the freezer, finding that he was all rigid angles locked into place with the existing contents of the freezer. With some effort, they finally lifted him into the wheelbarrow.
“Is that a leg of lamb?” asked Bastian.
“Yes. I can't seem to get it out from the crook of his arm,” said Manfred. “We'll just have to take it with us.”
Carrying Lionel in the wheelbarrow was not the simple task that it had sounded. His centre of gravity was off-kilter due to his frozen posture. Having slid into V between piles of frozen goods, Lionel was in something like the yoga position of down-dog, Manfred decided. The leg of lamb wasn't helping, either. Manfred wheeled, and Bastian crabbed alongside, hoisti
ng the weight of Lionel's hips so that it didn't topple the wheelbarrow.
They reached a point on the hillside, which was far enough away from the bird hide to escape notice, and started to dig a hole.
“This is much harder than I thought it would be,” said Bastian. “The soil's really hard.”
Manfred nodded.
“Not too much more now, brother, but we really do need to hurry up, or the others will be returning. Cinnamon cake will keep them occupied for only so long.”
Once again, Stephen found himself greeting damned humans in the cellars of St Cadfan’s. Mama-Na and Boudicca pulled yard after yard of wide flexible piping up from the staircase, while Cartland (a woman who clearly possessed a head for figures and a mind of her own) argued over technical issues with Tesla.
“I’ve got Wilde and Nightingale working on the construction of the ‘magic box’,” said Rutspud. “Shipton and Bernhardt are on watch for nosey demons downstairs. We’re not going to be interrupted by any of your lot, are we?”
“Manfred has made cinnamon cake for them all upstairs.”
“And that will keep them occupied?” said Rutspud doubtfully.
“Until the cake is gone,” said Stephen. “We’re a community of simple tastes.”
“Gnga pip hoo?” said Mama-Na, brandishing one end of the sinuous piping.
“That’s got to go in the sea,” said Rutspud.
“I’ll show you the shortest path down,” said Stephen. “And we’ll have to camouflage it as we go.”
“And while we’re out, we’ll go find Potter and my flaming arm,” said Rutspud.
“I’m done in,” grunted Bastian. “Do you think this hole is big enough? I guess we need to make sure the body is protected from predators.”
“There are no large predators on Bardsey,” said Manfred. “No foxes or anything like that.”
“Maybe some ambitious rats though.”
“If we protect him from birds, then all will be well,” Manfred assured him. “Let's try him for size.”
They upended the barrow and tipped the body into the hole. They both stood back and looked in dismay at Brother Lionel's bottom sticking up well above the ground as his limbs jammed awkwardly in the hole.
