The Day Before Tomorrow (16 page)

‘It’ll do,’ said Denny, wondering where she was going with this. 

‘Yes, the first ranks of each are made up of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang-di’s army of Terracotta Warriors, which guard his grave.  But look behind them.’ 

‘Terracotta warriors?’ said Denny.  ‘Like flowerpots are made of?’

Then, in response to Hecaté’s urging, he looked beyond them.  And saw …

Every possible representation of the human form that mankind had ever come up with.  Thousands upon thousands, rank upon rank of …  Statues, shop dummies, scarecrows, some of these, were no more than a few farm implements covered in old potato sacks with a face painted on the topmost sack, but they stood to attention in the eerie light and gave an impression of alertness.  Denny was horrified by them. 

On his right, he saw several hundred Michelin men bobbing importantly like overfed businessmen.  And on his left, among the sartorial elegance of the department store mannequins he could just pick out the odd Ronald McDonald.  The bright red heads nodding ridiculously above the crowd.

‘I think I’m having a seizure,’ said Denny. 

Tamar’s voice was heard again, from the front lines. ‘Get the civilians out,’ she ordered.  ‘I’m going to start up time again.’

‘Why not just leave them like this?’ said Denny gesturing to the frozen hordes.  

‘No, it has to end here,’ said Hecaté.

 ‘First wave,’ shouted Tamar.  ‘Attack.’ 

The Terracotta Warriors of China’s first Emperor surged forward. 

‘They take orders?’ said Denny. 

‘They wouldn’t be much use to us if they didn’t,’ observed Stiles.  He had been far less astounded than Denny had been by the golems. To Stiles, it was all equally incredible, whereas Denny worked on different levels of incredulity.  The sight of five thousand of these “flowerpot men” as he thought of them, marching forward with slow deliberation stamping out the fires of Hell and ripping up lampposts like daffodils as they went, was somewhere right at the top.  In an abstracted way, he could see why Tamar had put them at the front.  They were terrifying.

The dammed thought so too.  Most of them did not stay to fight, which Denny thought was very sensible of them. The problem that they had, was that there was nowhere for them to run. Tamar, with a military prowess that Denny felt he should have expected of her (she certainly ran his life with terrifying precision) had blocked off all possible exits.  Suddenly the thought struck Denny, which had possibly already occurred to you.  They were going to win.  And why not?  Their army was far bigger than Askphrit’s and was entirely composed of beings, which, by virtue of not being alive in the first place, could not die.  Of course, technically the dammed were not alive either.  But they were merely un-dead. 

‘What we have here,’ he thought, ‘are the
un-alive
!’  He was beginning to enjoy himself. 

He was now facing away from what he had thought of as the front lines, because that was where Tamar was, but, in fact, there was a front line in every direction.  It was the lesser known, “Box ’em in and slaughter ’em” movement.*

*[The difference between this manoeuvre and other typical military manoeuvres, is that this one works]
 

From behind him, he heard Tamar’s voice ringing out.  ‘Second wave – ATTACK.’

The golems, of all types, had this in common. They all commenced hostilities in absolute silence, which made their attack all the more unnerving.  The only sounds were the thin despairing wails of the damned as the tables were turned on them.  Now, as the ranks of mannequins and statues ran them down in eerie silence, their retreat became a rout.  On his left, Stiles was startled to hear another sound rupture the night air.  The sound of war whoops. He turned, startled, and nudged Denny.  Behind them, breaking ranks was, what was, by comparison to the other battalions, a mere raiding party of Cigar Store Indians firing wooden arrows with unerring accuracy into the welter of vampires in the streets. 

Now it may have occurred to the more astute among you that vampires can fly.  At least some of them can. Vampires have different talents, just as humans do.  Golems do not ordinarily fly, because humans do not ordinarily fly.  But there are exceptions.  As one or two of them managed to escape the turmoil in the street and rose into the air, the sound of a cock-crow could be heard above the streets.  Every head automatically turned upwards.  And there, circling gracefully, firing rapid arrows at the horrified vampires, was the statue of Peter Pan that is usually to be found, standing charmingly on its plinth (and behaving itself far better than the original could ever have done) in front of the house that inspired his existence.  Tamar had thought of everything. 

‘Oh, isn’t he lovely,’ cooed Cindy predictably.  And he really was too.

‘More to the point,’ said Stiles,  isn’t he vicious?’ and this was also true.

‘Still, I’d say he could use a hand,’ said Denny, it was true, there were more vampires trying the vertical escape route and Peter was running out of arrows. 

Denny manifested a bow and arrow and rose up into the air to join him.  Thus becoming the unconscious object of envy of small boys everywhere, even in these cynical times. 

When he saw Denny, the statue of Peter Pan let out a delighted ‘Cock a doodle doo.’  And flipped a somersault in mid-air.  Denny mimicked this sound and his “crowing” was unerringly accurate too – one of the lesser known advantages of having perfect pitch. 

Stiles could not help laughing. 

From this vantage, Denny could see the ranks of golems stretching out below him for what seemed like miles in every direction.  Over the horizon, he was quite certain that the neon figure lounging nonchalantly against the skyline was L.A.’s infamous Marlboro Man.  But he “hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.” 

Down on the ground, Stiles was astounded to see coming up behind the mannequins and scarecrows, a rather
smaller
army.  ‘Jesus,’ he thought, ‘Tamar must have raided every toyshop in the western world.’

It was like “Small Soldiers” meets “Bride of Chucky” and some of those “Tiny Tears” dolls, really did have preternaturally ferocious expressions.

Jamie, at Tamar’s side, was watching the carnage with an unusually abstracted expression, as if he were watching, from very far away, events that did not really matter very much.  Tamar was rather too busy to notice his strange behaviour at the moment.

After a while, he turned abruptly and disappeared into the shadows.

Tamar never noticed him go. 

At this point, the vampires, who had been running and shrieking for some time, now appeared to redouble this activity.  Denny found himself in the absolute thick of a veritable swarm of panicking bloodsuckers who had all risen suddenly, as if by command. The devils on the ground now had more room to manoeuvre, and they also began to try even more desperately than before, to escape. 

Denny, higher up than the others, was first to notice a weird light in the East. A gentle glow that seemed to be spreading.  He shook his head stupidly.  Then all activity ceased abruptly, as every head was turned to follow his gaze.  The dammed shrieked in despair as Tamar and the others let out a cheer, both weary and triumphant.  And Denny suddenly realised what he was seeing.

 It was the dawn. 

~ Chapter Twenty Three ~

A
skphrit sat drumming his fingers impatiently. Why had no one come to bring him news of his victory?  The lack of discipline down here was appalling.  Well, there would be a day of reckoning all right.  If they thought they could get away with this they could … he would light a fire under them all right, just as soon as … and then they would all be …  Once he ruled the world there would be no more of this slack behaviour.  He would see to that.  It would all be … Aha, yes, he would be the Despot that he had always wanted to be, and then… and then … oh yes – then there would be some … and everybody would be sorry.  Then they would see what he … mmm.

Askphrit often thought like this, in a kind of shorthand.  He would talk this way too, leaving people to guess the ends of his sentences, which even for an imp, was not too difficult.  There are only so many ways the sentence.  ‘I’m not happy, and when I’m not happy…’ can end, and none of them are good, at least not out of certain mouths. 

He was just making his mind up to stir himself and head up to the surface to find out for himself what was going on, when Peirce appeared in the room.  Askphrit scowled at him and Pierce very unwisely backed away nervously. This only served to irritate Askphrit.  He glared at Peirce who, he noticed now, did not look at all happy and suddenly Askphrit had a premonition.  

‘What’s happened?’ he snapped.

* * *

The vampires crumbled to dust. The demons all turned to stone where they stood, providing, as Tamar said, a lot of interestingly ugly statues, which did nothing to enhance the ambience of the neighbourhood. 

In the chill dawn light, the streets now looked, if possible, even more eerie than they had done during the night, particularly with the ranks of the golems now standing perfectly still and silent.  The vampires were not a problem anymore, but the demons were.  Come the night, Askphrit would be able to resurrect them in much the same way as Tamar had created the golems. They would not be the same as they had been, but perhaps, from Askphrit’s point of view, that would not necessarily be a bad thing. As golems, the demons would be more – suggestible, than they had previously been.

Well Tamar had an answer for that.  She gave the order.  ‘Smash them all,’ she told the golems.

From deep in the earth they all heard the groan. It rose to a roar that made the ground shake.  Tamar grinned at Denny who returned the look.  It was Askphrit. 

* * *

It looked like Tokyo after a visit from Godzilla.  No mere earthquake could have caused this amount of devastation. Even Tamar did not think she could fix this mess.

‘Never mind,’ said Denny.  ‘We won, that’s the main thing.’

‘This round anyway,’ said Tamar.  But she was smiling.   

The golems, without being asked, had started to clean up the rubble in the streets.

‘Handy aren’t they?’ said Stiles.  

‘You are a genius,’ said Hecaté appearing behind them. ‘I never would have thought of this.’

Tamar inclined her head modestly.  ‘Sometimes they just come to me,’ she said.  ‘I knew there was an answer, I just … well, the truth is, I was culpably slow in reaching it.  I should have thought of it a lot sooner.’

‘Well, the point is, that it worked,’ said Stiles.  ‘Bloody amazing.’ He stopped and looked around him, frowning   ‘Where’s Jamie gone?’ he asked. 

They had no time to ponder this question, and, in fact, it was generally assumed that it had all been too much for him, and he had run away.  No one blamed him; even by their standards, it had been a full night.  Some people never have a night like it in their whole lives.  Most people actually – but surprisingly, not
no
people.  You would be surprised what some people can get up to.  Well, not people as such, not human people anyway.  Stiles, on the other hand, did not think that Jamie had run away out of fear, at least not the fear of the hordes of the damned anyway.  For one thing, he had been the only person to observe Jamie’s strange behaviour during the night and for another thing, suspicion was by way of being the ground state of Stiles’s personality. But he did not say so – for one thing, he did not have time.

To the absolute horror of them all, there was a loud rumbling noise as the ground shook violently, knocking them all off their feet. Then a huge fissure opened up in the ground causing everyone to back away hastily, on their hands and knees.  Tamar felt the indignity of her position, and stood up shakily.  The ground was still shuddering under their feet.  From within the fissure a billowing black cloud was rising slowly and deliberately.  A venomous, viscous, swirling murkiness that could not have come from anywhere but Hell, the spiritual home of pollution.  Despite seeming to move slowly it soon filled the sky, seeming to curdle the very air as it made contact with it and turned it an almost impenetrable black.  Within minutes, you literally could not see your hand in front of your face.  From the fissure itself, there was now visible a dull red light, and a hot blast of sulphurous gas was emitted every now and again. 

‘What the hell is it?’ came Stiles’s voice from somewhere in the now almost solid darkness.  It sounded muffled, as if he had a sock stuffed in his mouth. 

‘It must be Askphrit,’ said Denny from somewhere, in the same deadened tone.  ‘Tamar?’  

‘He’s come back quicker than I expected,’ she confirmed. ‘Look in the pit,’ she pointed, but of course, they could not see her. 

They all looked anyway.  By the light of a dim red glow, they could see thousands of dark shapes climbing up the sides of the fissure, which was getting wider.

‘Goddammit,’ blasphemed Tamar from somewhere within the oily living darkness.  ‘Blast, blast, blast!’  This utterance was met with a questioning silence.  To which she answered.  ‘I didn’t expect him to get his act together this quickly. I don’t know what to do.  I mean you can’t fight what you can’t see.’ 

‘Can’t we at least relight some of the fires?’  Tamar judged this to be Stiles’ voice. 

‘In this murk?’ said – Denny?  ‘I don’t think we’d be able to see them.  This isn’t ordinary darkness.’ 

This was true, it seemed not to be a shadow cast by light, which even the dark of night ultimately is, but to be a living thing that swallowed light.

‘I think … urrrgh.’  His voice was cut off abruptly by a choking gurgle.

‘Denny?’  From the depths of the darkness came the muffled sounds of a struggle.

‘Denny!’  Tamar sounded frantic.  There was a long ominous silence and then. ‘Everyone okay?’  It was Denny’s voice – unmistakably. 

There were all round sighs of relief and confirmations of presence and correctness. 

Then all Hell was let loose – again.

* * *

This time it was rather different.  For one thing, it was deadly cold and as black as pitch, and all of them were now exhausted, even Tamar.