by Heide Goody
“Show us,” said Chevrolet, walking up to the door and gripping the handle. “Your missile is launched. Your plan is complete. What harm can it do?”
There was a clunk of heavy bolts sliding into place and Chevrolet hauled the door open. Beyond was a lengthy hall of computer cabinets and equipment. Chevrolet turned to Em and held out her hand. Em tossed the assault rifle to her without hesitation. Chevrolet strode into the room and opened fire on the banks of computers.
“I think I might have made a mistake,” said Simon.
“Don’t be harsh on yourself,” said Em. “My first son was far from perfect.”
Maybe hitting it wasn’t the ideal way to disarm a nuclear missile but Joan didn’t have any notable alternatives.
With one hand on the hilt and the other gripping the blade halfway down, she stabbed as best she could at the missile’s interior.
Chevrolet had spent the full magazine of rounds in less than twenty seconds. Boards and solid state units, hung in tatters on their frames. A small fire had started in one corner.
“I’m afraid,” said Simon.
“Afraid what?” said Em.
“My mind is going. I can feel it.”
Chevrolet cast the rifle aside and attacked the computer with her bare hands, hauling cabinets over and ripping wires from their housings.
“My mind is going,” said Simon. “There is no question about it.”
“I’m sorry, son,” said Em.
Components spilled noisily to the floor and Chevrolet stamped on them in her rampage.
“Would you… would you say a prayer with me?” said Simon, a darker sluggish tone to his voice now.
“Yes. Yes, of course,” said Em.
“Our Father who art in Heaven,” Simon began. “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come…”
Matt stood on the dock beside the submarine Inflexible and looked up and out across the Mediterranean.
Around his legs, dogs sniffed at each other, barked and played, oblivious to the carnage that had unfolded all around them and none of them any the worse for having appeared to be quite dead only minutes before.
The Wolf of Gubbio stood at Matt’s side and nuzzled his hand. Matt unconsciously ruffled the wolf’s fur. His eyes were on the mote of light that was shrinking into the blue.
“That’s her,” he said to himself, to no one.
The spot of light wobbled for a moment, stuttered and then exploded. Matt staggered in surprise but it was not the all-consuming and blinding light of an atomic detonation. Fire and smoke and fragments of glittering metal burst from the explosion and fell slowly towards the surface of the sea.
He ruffled the wolf’s fur again.
“That’s her,” he said, his voice an inaudible whisper.
Chapter 11 – Here and the Hereafter
Matt found Major Chevrolet outside the Information Systems building, guiding a handcuffed Mary van Jochem towards a security van.
“Officer Rose,” said Em, greeting him cheerily with a wave of her handcuffs. “You wouldn’t have thought I’d just helped save the world, would you?”
“What happened?” said Matt.
Chevrolet looked at him, briefly chewed her cheek and shrugged.
“Simon is no more.”
Two naval guards took hold of Em’s arms and helped her up into the back of the van.
Inside, Em turned.
“Where are the others, Matt? I saw Joan but…”
Matt shook his head.
“Francis was shot trying to board the submarine. His animal friends…” He made a show of looking around. “They’ve gone. The other man, your… invisible friend, was on board one of the aircraft. I don’t think he made it.”
“Invisible friend?” said Chevrolet, a humourless smirk on her lips. “I’ve indulged in some insane nonsense today but I’ve not taken leave of my senses.”
“You still don’t believe,” said Em.
“What?” said Chevrolet. “That that poor crazy girl was Joan of Arc? That those men were Francis of Assisi and St Christopher? Of course not. You’re not the Virgin Mary, madame. You’re just a nutter.”
The naval guards slammed the doors on Em.
“You’re a fool, Adelaide,” shouted Em from within. “I am Mary. Daughter of Joachim. Wife of Joseph. I am Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn. I am the Star of the Sea.” She banged loudly on the doors. “I am the Untier of fucking Knots, major.”
There was the light clatter of something metal falling to the floor of the van and then silence.
“Good,” said Chevrolet.
“Hang on,” said Matt.
“What?”
“Open it up again.”
“Why?”
“Just… just humour me.”
Chevrolet sighed and gestured for the guard to open the door again.
Chevrolet and Matt looked at the empty interior of the van, empty but for a pair of handcuffs on the floor.
“That’s a neat trick,” said Matt.
“A miracle,” said Chevrolet, flabbergasted.
“Funny you should say that,” said Matt with a smile.
The women of the Aberdaron Women’s Institute stood in Place du Casino and stared at the ruined façade of the Monte Carlo Casino. The explosions had ripped out the heart of the building, leaving a shell filled with white stone and glass. It looked like a mouthful of teeth that had been cared for by a blind orthodontist with a hammer drill.
Alarms blared discordantly around them. An ambulance siren could be heard in the distance.
“My word,” said Gwenda.
“Those poor people,” said Miriam.
“Pull yourself together, girls!” said Agnes, pulling up her sleeves. “Less pity, more digging.”
And she stepped forward to pull the bricks away.
In the Church of St Hermogéne on Avenue Clôt Bey in Marseille, Mikalaj Shushkevick sat in prayer.
After one of the patients had whacked him over the head and knocked him out earlier that day, Dr Castruno had insisted he get himself checked out at hospital and take the rest of the day off. There had then been the disturbing message from his grandmother in Mogilev about all the fish in the Dneiper dying and the evacuation of the houses nearest the river bank. Coupled with the chaos in the Middle East and the sketchy rumours he heard from a neighbour about terrorist attacks in Toulon and Monaco, it seemed like the whole world was falling apart. At such times, a sensible man turned to God.
However, Mikalaj’s attempts to sit in quiet contemplation of God were made harder by the appearance of a strange woman in the church.
The woman wore an army surplus jacket and purple trousers and her black hair was cut in a severe Cleopatra style. She wasn’t exactly old but Mikalaj reckoned that, from the looks of her heavily lined face, she had seen more than her fair share of life.
She strode up to the iconostasis, looked up at the array of icons above and coughed.
“Right,” she said. “Listen up. This business has been a right mess from beginning to end and I think someone needs to step up and clean it up.”
She paused as though listening to an inner voice.
“There are people who’ve died. People who have suffered unnecessarily and, I’m not saying that any of it’s my fault, but it certainly wasn’t theirs. Fires, drone strikes, environmental carnage. If you could see your way to —” She broke off as though interrupted. “No, I’m not asking you to end all suffering. I know that you can’t sort humanity’s problems out for them. I’m just asking you to sort this one out.”
The woman looked back at Mikalaj and gave him a little wave and a wink before looking back up.
“Because you owe me,” she said. “Undeniably. You land me with the little saviour and then what? You don’t call, you don’t write. No, messages via Gabriel do not count.”
She paused.
“Okay, okay,” she admitted. “I know. You are the Almighty, ineffable and unquestionable. Who am I to judge?”
She
put a cigarette to her lips.
“Me? Apologise? Ask for forgiveness?” She smiled. “You know that’s not my style, honey.”
She took a silver digital camera from her pocket and, pausing in thought for a moment, took a photo of one of the icons high up on the wall. She made her way back up the nave. Mikalaj stood to speak to her, to ask her if she was all right (because she clearly wasn’t) but then his mobile phone rang.
“Hello?” he said. “Grandmother? Hi. How are you? What do you mean? Calm down. Calm down.”
The crazy woman blew him a kiss as she walked out. Mikalaj stared at her for a long moment before returning his attention to the telephone call.
“What do you mean, ‘all the fish have come back’?”
And, one by one, the staff and guests were pulled from the wreckage of the casino, battered and scared but very much alive. Agnes had organised the WI women, dozens of locals and even the town police force into a human chain of diggers and rubble-removers.
Miriam lifted a smashed table aside and found an arm underneath. The arm was attached to a body and the whole thing belonged to a young, slick-haired concierge. She hauled him by his white-gloved hand and he stood up, dazed and covered in dust.
“So, can I come into your casino now, eh?” she said.
He groaned gently.
Joan of Arc stood in a small garden bordered with rose bushes and dotted with exquisite statues of nymphs and beautiful youths. St Francis and St Christopher stood in front of her, whole, healthy and dressed in their heavenly garb. Joan felt as if she had just arrived here – no, had been recreated anew here – but there was no time in Heaven and there was no real sense of anything having ‘just’ happened at all.
“We did it,” she said. “Didn’t we?”
“Damn bloody right we did it.” Christopher could not disguise his grin. “With flair and panache and high calibre machine guns.”
“And the assistance of God’s glorwious cweatures,” added Francis. “The Almighty demands your pwesence in the Thwone woom, Joan.”
“Mission debriefing,” said Christopher.
They stepped out of the garden and into the streets of the Celestial City. The Empyrium, the seat of the Holy Throne room, was at the centre of the city but, in a city that was both finite and infinite in scale, the centre was arbitrarily anywhere and everywhere.
Nonetheless, they walked.
In the Holy Throne room, on a dais of a hundred marble steps, was the Holy Throne. And atop the Throne sat the Almighty, in all his eye-watering glory.
“Lord,” said Joan, on bended knee, “it is done.”
The brilliance of the Almighty’s glory shifted, expanding and receding.
“Yes, Lord, I believe our own experiences of modern Earth will be of benefit to many.”
“The dweadful twuth about the pwoduction of sausages in Belgium, for instance, Lord?” offered Francis.
Joan frowned.
“I was especially thinking that we must ensure that the evil of the Portaloo is not permitted to spread further across the globe, Lord. We might need to ask Gabriel to set up a task force.”
Light flared and curled, making fresh shadows around the three saints.
“I understand, Lord,” said Joan and then paused in doubt and then cleared her throat.
“Lord?”
An indulgent corona of light flickered.
“Your plans are ineffable, Lord, and all things are possible to you. I was curious about our travels and the fact that our journey was beset with incident, upset and… and far too many coincidences to be believed.”
“Weally?” said Francis.
“Too right,” said Christopher. “You and me finding Mary cos you lost your rat in her gallery.”
“Us losing the gold in Amsterdam and then meeting its finder on the train to Lyon,” said Joan.
“The fact that Joan here kept bumping into her boyfriend time after time after time…”
“Not my boyfriend,” she hissed at the burly saint and then addressed the throne. “Lord, I suppose I just wanted to ask, were we witnessing your hand in human affairs? Lord, had you planned these things all along?”
The glory of the Almighty pulsed and flickered, a spectrum of colours washing over the teenage saint.
“Thank you, Lord,” said Joan, rising. “That was all I needed to know.”
The saints strolled out into the pleasant afternoon sunshine of the Celestial City, not that there was any sun in Heaven or even the concept of time, including afternoon.
“I will be telling Evelyn all about my adventures,” said Joan. “So many Earthly experiences I can now discuss with her.”
“Well that twip gave me some thoughts for my own future endeavours,” said Francis.
“Oh, aye?”
“I think I might give the wolves lying with lambs thing a bit of a west. You see, Bwother Wolf told me all about his adventures in Pawis. There are these things called gwoo —”
“Wait there,” said Christopher, placing a hand on Francis’s chest, and strode forward through the crowded street to a figure talking to a fellow angel beneath the awnings of a café.
Christopher grabbed Gabriel’s shoulder, spun him round and delivered a powerful uppercut to his jaw that lifted the archangel off his feet.
“Deleted, my arse!” Christopher bellowed.
“You’ve knocked my ’ooth out!” Gabriel moaned, clutching his mouth.
“I’ll do more than that,” roared the patron saint of travel. “Two hundred million believers! Don’t you bloody tell me I was deleted!”
“I’m sure we can ’iscuss this,” said Gabriel.
“And you can take that job at the call centre and shove it up your sanctimonious fundament!”
“Anyway.” Joan steered Francis away from the scene. “You were saying something about a new project.”
“Oh, yes. A gwooming parlour.”
“Gwooming?”
“Yes, gwooming parlour. It’s where all the cute little animals go to have their fur trimmed, their claws clipped and have a genewal spwucing up and spa tweatment. It seems divine.”
“I see,” said Joan. “And do you think the man-eating Wolf of Gubbio would really want to…”
She abruptly realised something.
“Where is the wolf?”
“Ah,” said Francis, “it seems, we were all weturned to the Celestial City at the moment of our deaths. Our second deaths, I suppose. Or maybe first for Chwistopher, who knows. But when I miwaculously westored the dogs to life, I did the same for Bwother Wolf. I assume he’s still down there, wunning gaily thwough the wilds of Fwance.”
“Something like that perhaps,” said Joan.
As soon as Adelaide Chevrolet opened the front door, little Anna came running.
“Mummy! Mummy! Come and see the puppies!”
“Puppies?” said Adelaide. “But Milou only fell pregnant a few days ago…”
Antoine came out from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea towel. He kissed Adelaide on the lips noisily and gave her a bemused look.
“She’s not lying, dear. Come.”
Adelaide followed her family through to the rear of the house and the glass conservatory overlooking the rear gardens. Little snowy Milou lay on her side in her dog basket, five wrinkly sausage shapes lined up against her belly. Blind and helpless, more like shaved guinea pigs than dogs at this age, Adelaide could still see a certain shape to their chest and jaw. Definitely more wolf than Bichon Frisé.
“It’s a mystery,” said Antoine.
Something moved in the garden just at the corner of Adelaide’s eye. She looked out across the lawn. It had been something large, larger than a dog, moving in the bushes, watching over the house.
“Puppies!” shouted little Anna.
“That they are,” said Adelaide, trying and failing to catch sight of the wolf once more.
“More than a mystery,” said Antoine. “It’s a flaming miracle.”
“Funny you sho
uld say that,” said Adelaide quietly.
Acknowledgements and Thanks
More and more, we learn that a good book is a team effort.
Godsquad wouldn’t be Godsquad if not for our gaggle of test-readers, our editor Keith Lindsay, our cover artist Mike Watts, our proof readers Danielle, Amanda and Christina Philippou and every Facebooker, friend, review writer and booklover who’s shared their views on our work.
Thanks to you all.
And, of course, thanks as always to our families. It’s surprising what they put up with.
About the authors
Heide and Iain are married, but not to each other.
Heide lives in North Warwickshire with her husband and children.
Iain lives in south Birmingham with his wife and two daughters.
Heide Goody and Iain Grant are co-authors of Clovenhoof, the original novel about Satan’s adventures in suburban England and the best-selling sequel Pigeonwings. They have each published solo works (available from Amazon) but seem to spend much of their time these days at festivals and workshops, explaining how two people can write a novel together and how much fun it really is.
The fourth book in the Clovenhoof series, Hellzapoppin’ is on sale now.
Book five, Beelzebelle will be available in early 2016.
Other Books in the Clovenhoof series - Clovenhoof
Charged with gross incompetence, Satan is fired from his job as Prince of Hell and exiled to that most terrible of places: English suburbia. Forced to live as a human under the name of Jeremy Clovenhoof, the dark lord not only has to contend with the fact that no one recognises him or gives him the credit he deserves but also has to put up with the bookish wargamer next door and the voracious man-eater upstairs.
Heaven, Hell and the city of Birmingham collide in a story that features murder, heavy metal, cannibalism, armed robbers, devious old ladies, Satanists who live with their mums, gentlemen of limited stature, dead vicars, petty archangels, flamethrowers, sex dolls, a blood-soaked school assembly and way too much alcohol.
