The Gates (2009) (19 page)

Shan and Gath had never tasted alcohol of any kind. Given that they were demons, and therefore not troubled by normal appetites, they had never eaten anything other than the odd chunk of coal or grit, and occasionally other, smaller demons, although mostly they just preferred to chew them
before spitting them out. So, when Meg handed them their first two free pints, carefully removing a pair of vouchers from their misshapen fists along the way, they just stared at them suspiciously to begin with. Gath was about to shatter the glasses and start being properly demonic when Shan noticed a vampire take a long drink from a similar glass. For a moment, the vampire looked as though he had just been hit through the heart with a large stake, as the unusual taste of Spiggitt’s Old Peculiar seared his mouth and erased a few memories. Then a strange, happy smile appeared on his face, and he hugged the nearest mummy.

Shan lifted the glass to his snout and sniffed it. Shan was used to the stench of Hell itself, but whatever was in the glass smelled a bit odd, even to him. He took a tentative sip.

Something exploded in Shan’s head, and he looked around to see who had hit him and then poked him in the eyes. As his vision began to return, and he found there was nobody nearby, Shan realized that it was the stuff in the glass that had somehow managed to hit him. He was considering throwing it at the wall and laying waste to all around him when he began to feel very mellow. He took another sip, longer this time. Now Gath raised his glass and drank. He staggered a bit when the beer started knocking out brain cells, and almost fell over.

“Hurh, hurh,” said Shan. It was a sound that he had never made before, and it took him a while to recognize it as laughter.

“Hurh, hurh,” said Gath as he too began to recover.

They drank a little more. Someone began playing the piano. Meg and Billy dispensed free French fries, and Shan and Gath got their first taste of greasy, deep-fried potato. Gath put an arm
round Shan. Shan was his best mate. He loved Shan. No, he
really
loved Shan.

They moved on to their second pints of Spigget’s Old Peculiar, and all thoughts of world domination faded away.

Meanwhile, back at Crowley Road, Mrs. Abernathy was unhappy. The destruction of the flying skulls she had sent after Samuel Johnson and his friends had not gone unnoticed, for each demon that passed through the portal was linked to Mrs. Abernathy’s consciousness, so she could see through their eyes and assess the progress of the invasion. She was also aware that two hellbulls had been beaten into nonexistence with household implements over what appeared to be some trampled rosebushes, but that was not a primary concern. Increasingly, she found herself infuriated by the Johnson boy. Why couldn’t he simply die? After all, he was just a child. His continued refusal to accept his fate was like a splinter under one of her fingernails.

She recalled something she had learned from her interrogation, and subsequent torture, of the demon that had so unsuccessfully occupied the space under Samuel Johnson’s bed, and her unhappiness began to ease.

Oh yes, she thought, I know what frightens you, little boy.

She closed her eyes, and her lips moved as she issued her summons.

T
HE CALL CAME THROUGH
on the police car’s radio while Nurd, Constable Peel, and the Sarge, whose real name Nurd had now learned was Rowan, were still some way from the station.

“Base to Tango One, Base to Tango One. Over,” said a male voice. It sounded somewhat panicked.

“This is Tango One,” said Sergeant Rowan. “Everything all right back there, Constable Wayne? Over.”

“Er, not exactly, Sarge,” said Constable Wayne. “Over,” he added, with a tremor in his voice.

“Clarify the situation, Constable, there’s a good lad,” said Sergeant Rowan. “Over.”

“Well, Sarge, we’re under attack. Over.”

Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel exchanged a look. “What do you mean, attack? Over.”

“We’re being attacked by flying women, Sarge. With the bodies of lizards …”

• • • 

Biddlecombe’s police station was a small building set in a field on the outskirts of the town. It had replaced an older building on the main street that had become infested with rats, and which was now a chip shop that nobody frequented unless they were very drunk, or very hungry, or rats visiting their relatives. The station consisted of a small waiting area and a large desk, behind which was an open-plan office and a single cell that was rarely used for prisoners; currently it was filled with Christmas decorations and an artificial tree.

The village had only six policemen, two of whom would generally be on duty at any one time. On this particular night four were on duty, as it was Halloween and people tended to get up to all sorts of mischief involving fireworks and, occasionally, fires.

PC Wayne and WPC Hay were currently holding the fort at the station. “Holding the fort” is usually a turn of phrase, a bit like “manning the barricades” or “fighting a losing battle.” In other words, people use it to describe perfectly mundane situations, like staying at home on a cold night, or keeping an eye on the local shop while the shopkeeper goes for a wee.

Unfortunately, PCs Wayne and Hay were now
literally
holding the fort,
literally
manning the barricades, and also
literally
fighting a losing battle. The first of the flying lizard women had appeared in the station car park while PC Wayne was having a crafty smoke outside, almost causing him to swallow his cigarette and choke. The woman had a green, saurian body, and long sharp nails. Her wings were like those of a bat, with curved talons in the middle and at the ends, and
she had a long tail that terminated in a vicious-looking spike. Her hair was dark and flowing, and for a moment Constable Wayne thought that she wasn’t bad looking, the whole lizard body and wings thing excepted. Then she opened her mouth and a forked black tongue flicked at the air between the kind of jagged yellow teeth that crop up in dentists’ nightmares, and any thoughts of dating her vanished from Constable Wayne’s mind.

At that point Constable Wayne decided that the best course of action would be to head back inside and lock the door, which is precisely what he did. There was a large bolt, and he pulled that across as well, just to be sure.

“What are you doing that for?” asked Constable Hay. “The sarge will spit nails if he comes back and finds that you’ve locked the front door.”

Constable Hay was small and blond, and Constable Wayne was a little in love with her. He had always thought she was very pretty, but now, after being confronted with a woman who appeared to be made up of bits of other creatures that really didn’t belong together, he decided that Constable Hay was quite possibly the loveliest girl in the world.

“There’s a woman outside,” said Constable Wayne. “With wings. And a tail.”

“It’s Halloween,” said Constable Hay slowly, as though she were talking to an idiot. She liked Constable Wayne, but he really could be very thick sometimes. “On my way here, I saw a man dressed as a toadstool.”

“No, this isn’t a woman dressed up to look like she has wings and a tail. She
does
have wings and a tail.”

There was a massive
thud
on the door. Constable Wayne backed away from it.

“That’s her,” he said. “The lizard lady.”

“Lizard lady,” said Constable Hay dismissively. “You’ll be telling me she can fly next.”

A woman’s face appeared at the barred window to the right of the door. Constable Hay walked determinedly toward it, her finger wagging.

“Now listen here, miss, it may be Halloween but we’ll have no more nonsense or—”

She stopped talking when she noticed that the woman was hovering two feet from the ground, her huge wings flapping hard to keep her in place. Then, bracing her feet against the outside wall, the flying woman gripped two of the bars with her claws and tried to pull them from the wall.

“See?” said Constable Wayne. “I told you so.”

From above their heads came the sound of something landing on the roof. Seconds later, the first of the slates began to fall into the car park as whatever it was tried to force its way into the station.

“Call the sarge,” said Constable Hay.

Constable Wayne ran to the radio. “Where are you going?” he asked as Constable Hay ran past him.

“To lock the back door!”

Inside the police car there was a long pause following Constable Wayne’s description of the attackers. Constable Peel made a gesture of someone drinking from a bottle, followed by an
imitation of that same someone being very drunk. Then over the radio they heard the sound of glass breaking.

“Constable, what’s that noise? Have you been drinking?” said Sergeant Rowan. “Over.”

“I wish I had!” said Constable Wayne. “One of them has broken the front window, and there’s another on the roof. Oh, crikey: the back door. Get here, Sarge—quickly. Please! We need help. Er, over. Over and out.”

The woman at the window had injured herself breaking the glass, and black blood now covered the shattered pane, but the bars had held. The woman appeared to give up, and flew upward. Constable Wayne heard her land on the roof and then followed the sound of her footsteps as she ran across the slates in the direction of the rear of the station. There, Constable Hay was using the full force of her body to try to force the back door closed when Constable Wayne joined her. The problem quickly became apparent: a claw was clutching at the door as the thing outside tried to push its way in. The gap widened slightly, and a gnarled foot appeared, and then Constable Wayne saw one of those terrible female faces pressed against the wood, its teeth bared.

“Help me!” cried Constable Hay. “I can’t hold it much longer.”

Constable Wayne reached for his truncheon and began using it to smack the creature on the knuckles. It screeched in pain and withdrew the claw, but its foot remained in place. Constable Wayne tried stamping on it with his size 11 shoes. Its claw appeared again, slashing at him.

“Hold the door!” said Constable Hay, and suddenly Constable Wayne was alone, with only his weight to keep the creature at bay.

“Where are you going?” he cried.

“Just hold it. I have an idea.”

It had better be a great one, thought Constable Wayne as he heard more footsteps above his head, followed by the sound of flapping wings as a second creature flew down to aid the first.

“Oh no,” said Constable Wayne to himself. “That’s not good. That’s not good at—”

The door was struck with such force that Constable Wayne was flung headfirst across the room. He scrambled to his feet in time to see two of the lizard women trying to force their way through the narrow door at the same time, and getting tangled up in each other’s wings along the way. Then the larger of the pair pushed aside her smaller sister, and stalked inside, her claws raised and her mouth open wide as she advanced on Constable Wayne.

Constable Hay appeared beside the demon, her arm outstretched and a small bottle in her hand.

“Hey!” she said. “Over here.”

The winged woman turned, and Constable Hay sprayed perfume straight into her eyes. She screeched and tried to rub at the irritant, but that just made things worse. At the same time, Constable Wayne picked up a hat stand and swung it at the second demon, which was trying to sneak around her sister. The hat stand caught the demon a vicious blow on the side of the head. She reeled away, stunned but still dangerous. Constable Wayne, now using the hat stand like a spear, began
poking at her, forcing her back outside. Meanwhile Constable Hay continued to spray perfume mercilessly into the first demon’s face until she stumbled blindly toward the door. Constable Wayne helped her on her way with a sharp kick to the behind, then slammed the door closed.

A series of loud shrieks came from outside and the two coppers watched through a window as the lizard women ascended into the night sky, off to seek easier prey.

“Great,” said Constable Wayne. “The sarge will never believe us now…

Sergeant Rowan had just hit the lights, and Constable Peel was about to put his foot on the accelerator, when Nurd tapped on the sheet of toughened plastic that partially separated him from the men in the front seats. He had heard the exchange over the radio, and he had also noticed some things that the policemen had not. The first were the little tendrils of blue energy that were shooting across a field in the direction of what looked like a nearby church. The second was a small being about two feet in height that appeared to be a yellow ball on legs, although most yellow balls didn’t have two mouths and a multitude of eyeballs. The yellow ball was chasing a rabbit, which jumped down a burrow, the ball in hot pursuit. Unfortunately for the ball, the hole was smaller than it was, and now it seemed to be stuck, its stumpy legs waving wildly.

This isn’t a positive development, thought Nurd. He recalled what Samuel had told him about the woman in the basement, and about her friends who no longer seemed to be human. Nurd had been rather hoping that Samuel was mistaken, or
that the four people, or demons, or whatever they were, might just have conveniently vanished, or returned home. Now there were yellow balls with eyes chasing rabbits, which disturbed Nurd greatly. It’s all very well if I’m the only demon here, he mused, but if there are lots of demons, well, then there could be problems. And that blue energy, that wasn’t just regular old electricity, or even transdimensional residue. No, it was energy of a very particular kind …

Nurd had once glimpsed the Great Malevolence. It was shortly before Nurd’s banishment, and he had been summoned to the Great Malevolence’s lair to be dealt with by his most trusted lieutenant, the ferocious demon named Ba’al. In the darkness behind Ba’al a huge shape had lurked, taller than the tallest building, wider than the greatest chasm, and for an instant Nurd had seen his face: eyes so red that they were almost black, great fanged jaws, and a horned crown upon his head that seemed to have grown out from his skull. The sight had so frightened Nurd that he had almost welcomed his banishment, for there could have been worse punishments. He could have been taken by the Great Malevolence himself deep into his lair, there to be slowly torn apart for eternity, always suffering and never dying. Compared to that prospect, banishment was a doddle.