Waywalkers: Number 1 in Series (7 page)

Sam smiled, the half smile of one who knows more than he’ll say, and has seen sights no man will ever see again and who still doesn’t think much of them. He turned towards the fire. ‘Where did Andrew go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How can I find him, then?’

‘Freya knew where he would go. They had it all worked out. But…’

But Freya’s dead.
 

‘Have you got a picture, a description, even?’

The abbot fumbled in a desk and produced a small photo. It showed a freckled young man standing in front of the Kremlin and grinning at whoever had taken the picture. Sam pocketed the photo without a word, all his thoughts kept to himself. He asked, ‘Who was the Historian?’

‘Historian?’

‘There was a message in Freya’s diary – meeting with the Historian.’

‘I heard of no Historian – though Andrew himself was very knowledgeable in that sense.’

‘Or someone called Gail?’

‘Andrew did mention Gail. He said Gail was the inside source, the one who gave him early warnings or vital little clues. But that was all he did say.’

‘Have you any idea where Andrew might have gone?’ Sam urged again. ‘Anything? What languages did he speak, for instance?’

‘He spoke a little French. Also he was fluent in Russian.’

That wouldn’t help, in a country the size of Russia.

‘What have you done with the books they were reading?’

‘Locked them away. Very deep.’

‘If someone comes, asking to see them…’ Sam hesitated, then dug around in a pocket until he came upon his travel guide and a very old biro that worked after you licked the end. He ripped the back page off the guide and wrote on it a name and address: Adam Hartland, 12 Britannia Drive, London, E8. A house whose owners were fictitious, but whose mail never went ignored: Adam was a regular checker. ‘Hartland’ meant it was for or from Sam.

‘Please, write to this address. Say nothing exact, and sign yourself only as the abbot.’

‘How dangerous, exactly, was this game Andrew and Freya were playing?’ asked the abbot.

‘Everything with my family is dangerous,’ Sam replied, rising to his feet. ‘I pity you mortals who get caught up in it.’ He slung his sword over his back, put on his thermal gear and turned to go.

Behind him the abbot called out, ‘Why were you given a crown, being a bastard son?’ His harsh words cut through the quiet of that place.

Sam Linnfer, alias Lucifer, alias the Bearer of Light – the terrible weapon that some said would destroy its very user – froze as though the question were a knife in his back. Without turning he replied in emotionless tones, ‘I don’t know. They say, because Time declared I was his necessary child.’

And left the room.

S
taggering once more through the Portal into the little dungeon, it was clear to Sam that someone had been there and recognised his bag, for the door was open and a fire burned on the floor in the centre of the cell, which was otherwise bitterly cold. Two heads stuck round the door at Sam’s arrival. Each wore a tight-fitting iron helmet, possessed frost-silver eyes and had patches of blue scale across their pale skin. Thick white hair grew from the base of their necks, and coiled down their backs. They wore light chain mail beneath white furs and carried iron-tipped spears.

‘Corenial, Setrezen,’ said Sam politely.

‘The Prince is expecting you, sir,’ growled one. ‘Your normal room has been prepared.’

‘Thank you.’ He had taken off his crown, and it now bumped around inside the box at his hip. The demons’ eyes watched it every step of his way down the corridor. They hungered to wear it, he knew, but didn’t dare.

It wasn’t necessary to take off the thermal gear. Tibet and the part of Hell where Sam had arrived were one and the same when it came to winter temperatures. The only difference was that in Gehenna, at least, it was always winter. Seven eighths of Hell burned for sixteen months a year, and he, Time help him, had chosen to come to the one eighth that didn’t.

Gehenna was a city with a lot of history. He knew that, because he was an integral part of that history. He’d built most of the place, after all. It rested in the far north of the planet, and for eleven months a year it saw sunlight for a maximum of five hours. The rest of the world, save for another small patch of ice on the southern pole, could claim the opposite. It hardly ever saw night.

In Sam’s lifetime Gehenna had been a village, then a town, then a city with a castle, then a pile of rubble, then rebuilt, then once more reduced, then rebuilt with city walls and a standing army, and never defeated again, although people tried.

Oh, how they tried.

But he’d been careful. Not only did he now have a resident Prince and council, but a network of spies and messengers. He could hear of an attack months beforehand, and travel Earth until the day it was due, to return to Gehenna in time to lay waste the approaching army with all the fiery tricks of his specialised trade.

Once, he’d ruled full time as king. But in recent centuries he’d become less an administrator and more a part-time emergency worker, as Gehenna, after years of nurturing, had come to do without him except in times of great crisis. He trusted the Prince and the council to manage their own affairs, and reasoned that after thousands of years of Hellish cuisine, and washing in water with bits of ice in it, he’d earned the right to Earth, caviar and central heating. Not being needed any more made him very grateful.

In the cold corridor, more demons nodded at him as he passed, a mark of respect and little more. They were the perfect winter warriors, he reflected as he acknowledged them. Their hides were thick, their white hair and blue scale were good camouflage, and they could fight for hours, assuming they’d had a big meal beforehand. They excelled in the snow, their summer cousins thrived in the burning desert. With such an obvious line drawn by evolution, Sam couldn’t understand why the demons were constantly warring. If frost demon couldn’t live comfortably in sand demon’s territory and vice versa, why so much war?

Because they are demons
, he thought with disgust.
And, for all that I’ve done, they’re still warring primitives who understand nothing outside their own armoury and ambitions. And Time help me, I gave them half the weapons they call their own. I taught them about walls and sieges and craft and cunning, thinking they wouldn’t war any more. And look what happened. For all my services, I bet half of them would still be willing to stick a knife in my back.

Climbing a flight of stairs he marched past stony walls hung with tapestries to keep the heat in, towards a wing of the huge Gehenna fortress where the fires always burnt. The tapestries depicted frost demons doing various things to their enemies that Sam didn’t want to look at. He was familiar with them, and they still sickened him.

He came to a large wooden door guarded by two demons, strode up to it and hammered loudly. It opened immediately.

Of the two people in the room, one was very old, one quite young. The elder lounged in a padded chair by a fire, wearing a mild smile that never waned. He’d been playing cat’s cradle, relentlessly patient, moving in and out of shapes with the concentration of a master craftsman. His long blue robe was frayed around the hem, and he wore fluffy slippers over a pair of outrageously coloured socks.

Sam, as he entered, was fixed with old demon’s unchanging smile, and the same ancient eyes that never showed emotion. This demon’s voice never rose in anger. This demon had never desired the bloodlust of slaughter or killed his own wife for disobedience. This was the necessary demon, who filled the unsung post that the silent thinkers of the world – the children who never wanted to play the violent games in the playground or who invariably handed in their homework on time – always fill: civil servant. Court Vizier. Old Beelzebub. The power behind the throne.

No one knew he embodied such a power, but Sam knew. And Beelzebub knew. They could read the knowledge in each other, through each measured nod, and in each level word that revealed nothing save what it left unsaid.

The younger demon was in every way Beelzebub’s opposite. He didn’t even look up as Sam entered, but continued pacing round a map laid out on a table. Sam saw little wooden blocks with flags in them, and sighed inwardly. A child was playing with his toys again.

This younger demon wore long blue and white robes with trailing sleeves and lavish embroidery that, for all that they made him look regal, also gave the impression of a boy playing with his mother’s wardrobe. Nevertheless, this was the same Prince who had intimidated many a baron into submission and had won his crown by slaying his brothers in duel after duel. He radiated energy as always, brow crinkled in a frown and fingers drumming up and down his sword.

And yes, he was a good Prince
, thought Sam. The kind of Prince who knew when to bribe, or when to call in the services of his all-too-eager soldiers to drag a confession screaming out of some innocent’s lips, which he could wield against a guilty man who’d become too big for his boots. A ruthless Prince. Therefore a good one, for all he wasn’t a good man. The distinction had to be drawn somewhere between the two, and Sam had drawn it long ago. He admired the Prince. He disliked the man. He suspected that the feeling was mutual.
One day
,
he thought sourly,
you’re going to decide that I’m not necessary. And you’re going to be so high on your own glory that you think you can succeed where countless others have failed. Poison me in the night, send assassins. Maybe even challenge me to a duel. But you don ‘t know how to kill me. You don’t even know there’s any special way I must be put to rest. You think mere iron will do the job.

‘Ah,’ said Prince Asmodeus. ‘You’re back. Had a nice time on Earth?’

‘Mildly interesting.’

Beelzebub was watching, silent as always. ‘Tell me,’ demanded Asmodeus, ‘do you think I ought to send a demand to Belial, ordering him to withdraw his forces from the Clawed Pass, or should I go for a surprise attack?’

Sam wandered to the table and looked down at the map. ‘If you send a demand to Belial,’ he replied evenly, ‘he’ll refuse it as an act of stubbornness.’

‘A surprise attack, then?’

‘I doubt if it’ll be a surprise. Belial has been looking for the right opportunity to invade for years. I don’t advise giving it to him.’

‘Hum.’ Asmodeus strode round to the other side of the map. ‘The Clawed Pass protects one of the best slave routes. The desert beyond is relatively undefended after his damned fort – the slave raiders would have a wonderful time if they can only get there.’

‘I won’t help you take slaves.’

‘No, you probably won’t,’ he said sourly. ‘You don’t seem to do anything, do you? You’re never here.’

That’s because I’ve given up on you, my boy.
‘Would you rather I was here? Ruling as once I ruled? Wearing another crown?’

Asmodeus glanced to Beelzebub for help against this attack on his status. But the old demon had frozen over even more than usual and was staring into the flames. Though the Prince struggled to find a suitable answer, none came. Angry, with embarrassment making him more so, he strode towards the door, mumbling something about ‘state business’ as he went. As childish a tantrum as Sam had ever seen.

‘Don’t provoke Belial to more war,’ warned Sam, but Asmodeus had already closed the door.

Sighing, Sam sank on to the fireside chair facing Beelzebub, folding his legs up so that his chin rested on his knees and he was no larger than a child. ‘Why did we crown him?’

‘Because demons acknowledge physical strength only. Because they want for Prince a man ruthless enough to kill his own brothers, and because we too want a man ruthless enough.’ He was giving the answer Sam had heard many times before.

The old demon added, ‘You’re spending longer and longer on Earth. Are you finally giving up on us?’

‘I don’t know. But I’m sorry anyway.’

‘No. I am the sorry one.’

They sat in silence a while longer.

‘Bubble, there may be bigger trouble coming than we thought,’ said Sam finally. Bubble was the name he always used, partly to infuriate his companion, partly out of fondness, partly because he’d worn so many names himself he’d got into the habit of applying different ones to others.

‘Bigger than Asmodeus waging another futile war on Belial?’

‘Much. My family is at war again.’ Sam described the circumstances of Freya’s death.

He added, ‘I believe she was conducting investigations into the four keys.’

If Bubble’s face ever showed anything, it showed surprise then. ‘The four keys?’ he echoed. ‘The Pandora keys? They’re lost.’

‘That’s what I’ve been told too. But Freya is dead. There is war in Heaven.’

There followed another silence, longer and more pained, in which their minds ran to certain obvious conclusions. Images of war and destruction played before their eyes, full of beings gloating at the future to be wrought.

Sam found himself yawning from exhaustion at his thoughts. Bubble asked, ‘Are you staying here?’

‘No. The humans have got it into their heads that I may be part of Freya’s death. And there are people I must find – urgently.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I need information on the keys. Clues as to where they’re hidden, what it means if their powers are unleashed, everything. And do what you always do. Keep Asmodeus out of trouble. Forestall the inevitable war as long as possible.’

Beelzebub looked worried, a flicker across his otherwise serene face. But even a flicker was so unusual that Sam was immediately alarmed.

‘What is it?’

‘Oh – anxieties. I’m growing old, you know. Perhaps it’s only me, but Asmodeus is becoming harder to control.’

‘Do you control him?’

The demon gave a knowing smile, sharing in the secret that only they knew. So obvious was this secret, so blatant and so simple, that no one else had seen it. Sam had often said that the best place to hide was in the open.

‘Of course not. I…
influence
his decisions.’

‘And it’s becoming harder?’

‘Yes. Half of my influence stems from you, and you’re not here.’

Sam felt a start of guilt at this simple statement. ‘I will try. All I need is a little time to deal with whatever Freya wanted me to do.’

‘At least,’ said Beelzebub with a smile, ‘doing what she wanted was never a problem for you.’

But you, old demon?
thought Sam as he trudged the last few steps up to his flat. In twenty-four hours he’d been to Devon, Tibet and Hell. Returning to London had a sense of homecoming, and it was with relief that he unlocked the door.
Have you got time? Sometimes I forget how soon you people die.

But he didn’t forget now. As he lay down to sleep he remembered things he’d rather not. He’d been arrogant in misusing the years, when he was younger. He’d let everything move at a snail’s pace, forgetting that by the time one flower bloomed, the other would have withered.

He didn’t forget. Remembering Annette and others, he thought,
Mortal child, why did you have to grow so old?

It had been one of those memorable cool spring evenings before the war in Heaven had finally spilled over to Earth. He’d been trying to have a cigarette, smoking being an almost universal trend in bustling Paris, but found himself unable to. Whenever he tried to inhale, his body’s natural defences had kicked in, and the blood had thundered in his head as regenerative powers worked themselves up to action. So he’d given up trying to smoke, and was now leaning on a balcony watching the occasional car drive down the street, passing from pool to pool of light.

Behind him, a bright, crowded room and the uproarious laughter of his French hostess as another tasteless joke was delivered. The humour had been getting noisier all evening, the smoke thicker, the drink flowing faster.
People are nervous
,
Sam thought.
They can feel the danger lurking in the future. Nineteen thirty-eight, the year that appeasement gains peace, and a German army wins its first little, disguised battle. But a battle nonetheless, albeit fought with papers and threats – and the memory of another war, still fresh in our minds. You’re all nervous. You can feel what’s going to happen, and you’re declaring that you don’t believe a word of it, because that’s what you want to be true.