The Infernals (4 page)

Because you never knew …

In a peculiar way, though, Samuel Johnson felt that they blamed
him
for what had happened. He wasn’t the one who had conjured up demons in his basement because he was bored, and he wasn’t the one who had built a big machine that inadvertently opened a portal between this world and Hell. It wasn’t his fault that the Devil, the Great Malevolence, hated the Earth and wanted to destroy it. But because he’d been so involved in what had happened, people were reminded of it when they saw him, and they didn’t want to be. They wanted to forget it all, and they had convinced themselves that they had forgotten it, even if they hadn’t, not really. They just didn’t want to think about it, which isn’t the same thing at all.

But Samuel couldn’t forget it because, occasionally, he would catch a glimpse of a woman in a mirror, or reflected in a shop window, or in the glass of a bus shelter. It was Mrs. Abernathy, her eyes luminous with a strange blue glow, and Samuel would feel her hatred of him. No other person ever saw her, though. He had tried to tell the scientists about her, but they hadn’t believed him. They thought he was just a small boy—a clever and brave one, but a small boy nonetheless—who was still troubled by the dreadful things that he had seen.

Samuel knew better. Mrs. Abernathy wanted revenge: on Samuel, on the Earth, and on every living creature that walked, or swam, or flew.

Which brings us to the other reason why Samuel couldn’t forget. He hadn’t defeated Mrs. Abernathy and the Devil and all of the hordes of Hell alone. He’d been helped by an unlucky but generally decent demon named Nurd, and Nurd and Samuel
had become friends. But now Nurd was somewhere in Hell, hiding from Mrs. Abernathy, and Samuel was here on Earth, and neither could help the other.

Samuel could only hope that, wherever he was, Nurd was safe.
7

A
FTER OUR BRIEF DETOUR
to Earth, and that lesson in love, life, the importance of good eyesight in relationships, and the perils of killing grandfathers, let’s return to Hell.

As has already been noted, the woman currently striding purposefully through the dim recesses of the Mountain of Despair while wearing a severely tattered floral-print dress, was Mrs. Abernathy, formerly known as Ba’al. Mrs. Abernathy had been making a daily pilgrimage to the Great Malevolence’s lair ever since the attempt to break into the world of men had come to
naught. She wanted to present herself to her master, explain to him what had gone wrong, and find a way to insinuate herself into his favor again. Mrs. Abernathy was almost as ancient and evil as the Great Malevolence himself, and they had spent aeons together in this desolate place, slowly creating a kingdom out of ash, and filth, and flame.

But now the Great Malevolence, lost in his grief and madness, was apparently refusing to see his lieutenant. Mrs. Abernathy was cut off from him, and the demon was troubled by this; troubled and, yes, frightened. Without the protection and indulgence of the Great Malevolence, Mrs. Abernathy was vulnerable. Something had to be done. The Great Malevolence had to be made to listen, which was why Mrs. Abernathy kept returning to this place, where foul creatures watched from the shadows in amusement at the sight of one of the greatest of demons, the commander of Hell’s armies, reduced to the status of a beggar; a beggar, what’s more, who seemed troublingly keen on wearing women’s clothing.

Oddly enough, Mrs. Abernathy, having initially been distinctly unhappy at being forced to take on the appearance of a lady in her forties, had grown to like wearing floral-print dresses and worrying about her hair. This was partly because Mrs. Abernathy had, until quite recently, been neither male nor female: she had simply been a distinctly horrible “it.” Now she had an identity, and a form that wasn’t mainly teeth, and claws, and tentacles. Ba’al might originally have taken over Mrs. Abernathy’s body, but something of Mrs. Abernathy had subsequently infected Ba’al. For the first time there was a use for a
mirror, and nice clothes, and makeup. She worried about her appearance. She was, not to put too fine a point on it, vain.
8
She no longer even thought of herself as Ba’al. Ba’al was the past. Mrs. Abernathy was the present, and the future.

As she descended deeper and deeper into the mountain, she was aware of the sniggers and whispers from all around her. The great bridge along which she walked was suspended over a gaping chasm so deep that, if you were to fall into it, you would keep falling forever and ever, until at last you died of old age without ever nearing the bottom. Metal and chains held the bridge in place, linking it to the inner walls of the mountain. Set into it were countless arched vaults, each hidden in shadow, and each inhabited by a demon. The vaults stretched upward and downward, as far as the eye could see and farther still, until the flaming torches set haphazardly into the walls, the sole source of illumination to be found in the chasm, became as small as stars, before at last they disappeared entirely, swallowed up by the gloom. Here and there beasts peered from their chambers: small imps, red and grinning; fiends of fire, and fiends of ice; creatures misshapen and creatures without shape, formless entities that were little more than glowing eyes
set against smoke. There was a time when they would have cowered from her presence, fearful that, even by setting eyes on her, they might incur her wrath. Now, though, they had begun to mock her. She had failed her master. In time, his cries would cease, and he would remember that she should be punished for her failings.

And then, what fun they would have!

For now, though, the wailing continued. It grew louder as Mrs. Abernathy drew closer to its source. She saw that some of the demons had stuffed coal in their ears in an effort to block out the sound of their master’s grief, while others appeared to have been driven as mad as he was and were humming to themselves, or banging their heads repeatedly against the walls in frustration.

At last the vaults were left behind, and there were only sheer dark walls of stone. In the murk before her, a shape moved, detaching itself from the shadows the way that someone might detach a shoe from sticky tar, tendrils of blackness seeming to stretch from the entity back into the gloom as though it were part of the darkness, and the darkness part of it. It stepped beneath the flickering light of a torch and grinned unpleasantly. In aspect it resembled a vulture, albeit one with somewhat human features. Its head was pink and bare, although the light caught the tiny bristles that pocked its skin. Its nose was long and fleshy, and hooked like that of a bird of prey, joining a single lower lip to form a kind of beak. Its small black eyes shone with inky malevolence. It wore a dark cloak that flowed like oil over its hunched shoulders, and in its left hand it held a staff of bone,
topped with a small skull. That staff was now extended before Mrs. Abernathy, blocking her progress.

The creature’s name was Ozymuth, and he was the Great Malevolence’s chancellor.
9
Ozymuth had always hated Ba’al, even before Ba’al began calling itself Mrs. Abernathy and wearing odd clothing. Ozymuth’s power lay in the fact that he had the ear of the Great Malevolence. If demons wanted favors done, or sought promotion, then they had to approach the Great Malevolence through Ozymuth, and if their favor was granted or they received the promotion that they sought, then they in turn owed Ozymuth a favor. This is the way that the world works, not just Hell. It’s not nice, and it shouldn’t happen, but it does, and you should be aware of it.

“You may not pass,” said Ozymuth. A long pink tongue poked from his beak and licked at something invisible upon his skin.

“Who are you to tell me what I may or may not do?” said Mrs. Abernathy, disdain dripping like acid from her tongue. “You are our master’s dog, and nothing more. If you don’t show me some
respect, I will have you taken to pieces, cell by cell, atom by atom, and then reassembled just so I can start over again.”

Ozymuth sniggered. “Each day you come here, and each day your threats sound emptier and emptier. You were our master’s favorite once, but that time is gone. You had your chance to please him and you threw it away. If I were you, I would find a hole in which to hide myself, and there I would remain in the hope that our master might forget I had ever existed. For when his grief ceases, and he remembers the torment that you have caused him, being taken to pieces will seem like a gentle massage compared to what he will visit upon you. Your days of glory are over, ‘Mrs. Abernathy.’ Look at you! Look at what you have become!”

Mrs. Abernathy’s eyes blazed. She snarled and raised her hand as if to strike Ozymuth down. Ozymuth cowered and hid his face beneath his cloak. For a moment they stayed like that, these two old adversaries, until a strange sound emerged from under Ozymuth’s cloak. It was laughter, a hissing demonstration of mirth like gas escaping from a hole in a pipe, or bacon sizzling in a pan.

“Tsssssssssss,”
laughed Ozymuth. “
Tssssssssssssssssssssss
. You have no power here, and if you strike me, then you strike our master, for I am his voice, and I speak for him. Leave now, and give up this senseless pilgrimage. If you come here again, I will have you taken away in chains.”

He raised his staff, and the small skull glowed a sickly yellow. From behind him, two enormous winged beasts appeared. In the dim light they had looked like the images of dragons
carved into the walls, so still were they, but now they towered above the two beings on the walkway. One of them leaned down, revealing its reptilian skull, its lips curling back to expose long sharp teeth of diamond. It growled low and threateningly at Mrs. Abernathy, who responded by smacking it on the nose with her bag. The dragon whimpered and looked embarrassed, then turned to its companion as if to say, “Well, you see if you can do any better.” The other dragon just shrugged and found something interesting to stare at on the nearest wall. That bag, it thought, was a lot heavier than it looked.

“You have not heard the last of this, Ozymuth,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “I will rise again, and I will not forget your insolence.”

She spun on her heel and began to walk away. Once again, she was aware of the sound of the Great Malevolence’s cries, and the whispers from demons, seen and unseen, and the hissing of Ozymuth’s laughter. She endured the long walk through the bowels of the Mountain of Despair, seething with hurt and humiliation. As she passed through the entrance and back into the desolate landscape of Hell, a voice spoke from somewhere around the level of her shoe.

“Have a nice day, now,” said Edgefast’s detached head.

Mrs. Abernathy ignored him, and moved on.

As Ozymuth watched the retreating figure, his laughter slowly ceased. A second form appeared from the shadows, tall and regal. The torches cast light upon his pale features, imperious and cruel. His long black hair was braided with gold, and
his clothing was of rich, red velvet, as though blood had been woven into cloth. His cloak, also red, billowed behind him even when the air was still, like a living extension of its wearer. He reached out a bejeweled claw and stroked absentmindedly at one of the dragons, which purred contentedly like a large, scaly cat.

“My lord Abigor,” said Ozymuth, lowering his head in a gesture of utter subjection, which was a very wise idea when in Duke Abigor’s presence, as people who forgot to lower their heads around Duke Abigor often found their heads being lowered for them, usually by having them removed from their shoulders with a large blade.

It is said that Nature abhors a vacuum, but so too does power. When someone falls out of favor with a leader, a line will quickly form to take that person’s place. Thus it was that when Mrs. Abernathy failed the Great Malevolence, a number of powerful demons began to wonder how they might take advantage of her misfortune to promote themselves. Of these, the most ambitious and conniving was Duke Abigor.

“What say you, Ozymuth?” said Abigor.

“She is stubborn, my lord.”

“Stubborn, and dangerous. Her persistence troubles me.”

“Our master will not see her. I have made sure of it. With every chance I get, I whisper words against her into his ear. I remind him of how she failed him. I stoke the fires of his madness, just as you asked of me.”

“You are a loyal and faithful servant,” said Abigor, his voice heavy with sarcasm. Abigor made a note to himself to have Ozymuth banished at the first opportunity once he achieved
his goal, for anyone who betrays one master cannot be trusted not to betray another.

“I am loyal to the Great Malevolence, my lord,” replied Ozymuth carefully, as though Duke Abigor had spoken his doubts aloud. “It is better for our master if his lieutenants do not fail him. Or dress in inappropriate women’s clothing,” he added.

Abigor stared at the predatory visage of the chancellor. Abigor was not used to being corrected, however gently. It made him even more intent upon disposing of Ozymuth as soon as he could.

“I will remember you when I come to power,” said Abigor, and he let the double meaning hang in the air. “Our time draws near. Soon, Ozymuth, soon…”

Abigor faded back into the shadows, and then disappeared. Ozymuth released a long, ragged breath. He was playing a dangerous game, and he knew it, but if he distrusted Duke Abigor, then he hated Mrs. Abernathy more. He gripped his staff and headed deeper into the Mountain of Despair, wincing as the howls of his master grew louder. At the entrance to the inner chamber, he paused. In the gloom, his keen eyes espied the massive shape of the Great Malevolence, curled in upon himself in grief.

“It is I, my master,” he said, poison dripping from every word. “I bear you sad tidings: your faithless lieutenant, Mrs. Abernathy, continues to speak ill of you …”