Kill Fish Jones (22 page)

‘Here's a question for you,' he said, ‘my Sufferer has a destiny and I want to know when his destiny is going to happen so that I know how long it will be before I can kill him.'

‘Oh,' said Flute, sadly, ‘you don't want to know anything about noble humans, or Beyond, or Choice or any of those things?'

‘No,' said Grimshaw coldly. ‘They don't really matter. Not in the way that killing my Sufferers and being a great demon matters.'

‘Oh,' said Flute again, and Grimshaw thought he saw
something like disappointment in her glowing eyes. It made him even angrier. He was only trying to do a good job, to be the best demon he could be, so what right had she to be disappointed? He glared at her, letting the rage well up inside him, driving out all the terror he would normally feel in the presence of any of the Sisters.

‘Well,' she said after a long moment, ‘humans of that kind can have one destiny or many. Or they may have a destiny that takes them a lifetime to complete.'

Grimshaw kept glaring straight into her green lamps, his paws clenched. She blinked at him.

‘And Fish Jones …?'

‘Has many tasks over many lives to perform in the service of Fate.'

Hunching his shoulders, Grimshaw turned away to stare out over the sea.

‘So here's another one then,' he said softly. ‘Where in Real Space is the Mighty Curse?'

Flute sighed. Her voice dropped to a soft whisper and her lamp eyes bathed the side of his head in their light as she leaned closer. ‘We knew about Tun's plan to use you, and we guessed long ago that you would try asking us about it sooner or later. My sisters made me promise not to tell you where the Mighty Curse sleeps.'

‘Doesn't surprise me,' snapped Grimshaw. ‘I may only be a small demon, but I'm not stupid. I worked it out. Everything would be destroyed, including all the Avatars.'

‘Possibly, nobody knows for sure. But still,' Flute went on, ‘even though I don't know what will become of me and of my sisters, I am here for a reason. I will give you what you wanted long ago when all this was just beginning. I will give you the gift of choice. You can choose to unleash the Mighty Curse and destroy every living morsel of humanity and all the curses with it. Or you can choose to step back and let Fish Jones carry out his destinies, while you accept your disgrace and live out your half-life to its natural end.'

Grimshaw turned back and glared into her emerald eyes again. ‘What choice is there,' he snarled, ‘if you won't tell me what I need to know?'

Flute shrugged. ‘Work with me here – I'm taking a big risk for you. And do you know how hard it is to give my sisters the slip! Look, just because we're cruel, doesn't mean we aren't good. I'm sure in my heart that you will choose to let the noble humans live. I believe you have it in you to be a better being. But I could be wrong, and if I am … who knows what I will have unleashed? What we will all have to face?'

The angel leaned even closer, so that her cheek brushed the demon's forehead and her lips tickled his pointed ear. ‘I promised my sisters not to tell you where the Mighty Curse is hidden,' she whispered, ‘but I don't
need
to tell you. You are a half-life and have it in you to divine the answer for yourself. You do it all the time. So do it,
if you choose
.'

She drew back and peered into his corner-to-corner
black eyes. ‘Just one last thing before I go. You were given a glimpse of Beyond, remember? There was a promise in that, a promise of something more than all this, and that is a rare thing for a curse demon to have. So now, a warning.
Look
.
Down
.'

Unfolding her wings, Flute shot upwards in a flurry of air and a wave of tail and was gone, leaving Grimshaw staring after her. He hissed quietly, his brain turning over what she had said.

A choice. Kill the world and Fish Jones with it. Or let the humans live.

And a warning.

Almost without thinking about it, Grimshaw turned his eyes to look down. There was the Limbo sea, as blank and dead as ever. Except … His eyes went wide with shock.

Except that now, suddenly, Grimshaw could see
through
the grey glass surface of the ocean. As if there were something beyond the still, dead water. And what he saw made his flesh crawl and his insides tie themselves in knots. What he saw beneath the glass ocean was a darkness so deep and so endless that he could feel the chill of it in his blood. It was the darkness of the darkest of nights, and looking at it gave Grimshaw a gaping hole inside, even though he didn't understand what it had to do with him. He stared, horrified, for a long moment, all thoughts of the Mighty Curse and Fish Jones temporarily suspended.

But slowly they came back, and when they did he
spun the dials of his chronometer and went to Real Space to think things through.

Grimshaw drew in a long breath of sharp, salty air. Above him, the Real Space sky was clear and filled with stars, and a sliver of moon cast its cold light over the heaving waters. The whole effect was about as far away from the glass sea in Limbo as anything could get. Although there was no endless dark beneath the waves in Real Space, still the sense of mighty depth and sheer size was breathtaking. Watching it with his unblinking eyes, Grimshaw thought that he had never seen anything so amazingly lonely, or so amazingly beautiful. Or for that matter so amazingly powerful. It was far, far better than BOOM.

He was sitting on the same rock that he had just left in Grey Space, but here the waves broke and frothed around his perch, dashing icy spray across his skin. Behind him, the great cliff reared darkly against the night sky, towering over the cluster of rocks at its feet. Grimshaw's was the one furthest out. The one nearly on its own, surrounded by the restless energy of the water that seethed about him with barely contained power.

He shivered, coiling and uncoiling his tail. His clawed paws dug deeply into the seaweed, grazing the rock beneath. The smells of night air and salt filled his nose and the ceaseless calling of the waves roared in his ears. It all matched his dark, unsettled mood so perfectly. He
could feel the ocean seeping into him, reaching deep into his heart and filling him with its deadly power.

In Grimshaw's head, thoughts and feelings churned and boiled. If he could find the Mighty Curse and wake it, he could achieve his aim and kill Fish Jones. But the world might end and every human with it.

He curled his tail thoughtfully. For all Flute's certainty that he cared, noble humans seemed like something he had worried about a long time ago and now the thought of wiping them out didn't bother him at all. He wanted to be worth noticing; he wanted to be different. Angels and demons alike, he wanted to
show them all.

And what about the curse demons that he would also bring to an end? Grimshaw curled his lip in a sneer. What of it? He owed them no loyalty. All he ever got from them was mockery and scorn. He'd end himself too, of course, but so what? If he did this, if he awoke the Mighty Curse and wiped out everything for his own ends, he would no longer be some third-rate scraping of a demon. The instant before they were snuffed out they would know who it was who had bested Destiny against the odds. They would know who had killed them. And that would be enough for Grimshaw.

Gazing out across the heaving, restless mass of the ocean, Grimshaw felt again its pull on his heart. His all-black eyes glittered darkly as the power of it worked into every inch of his being and made him want things. It made him want to be vast and eternal and mighty. It made him want to be MORE.

Why care about death, he thought, when I can be
great
!

Looking up, he saw that the sky was beginning to lighten. He watched it while it changed to turquoise silk and then pale green and then gold. And then the sun rose.

And when it did, Grimshaw went to find the Mighty Curse.

When Fish woke up he was alone in the room. Not in the house though, for Alice had left the bedroom door open and he could hear her downstairs. He lay for a while, listening to the sounds of morning. Normally, he was woken up by early risers heading off for work in their cars, or by the milkman, or the smell of toast. Today, apart from Alice, all he could hear were birds singing. Nothing else. Not an engine sound anywhere.

He yawned, stretched and sat up, then looked around, fearful that the demon would be crouched somewhere, watching him. Planning his death. It wasn't.

Getting out of bed, he pulled on his jeans and limped downstairs. His foot hurt too much to be put back into a shoe just yet. It was still wrapped in his handkerchief, which looked as if it might have stuck to the wound as the blood dried. He wasn't looking forward to pulling it off.

In the kitchen, Alice had emptied the contents of the Sainsbury's carrier bag on to the table and laid them out. There was a packet of plastic knives and forks, a
small jar of strawberry jam, a loaf of bread, two tins of soup, a small bottle of water and some chocolate. The lemonade and the biscuits from the night before were still upstairs.

As Fish came in, she looked up. She was holding a bottle of kitchen cleaner in one hand and a cloth in the other – bought along with the food, Fish guessed – and she was covered in coal dust.

‘I got the stove going! And don't think it was easy! I made a bit of a mess. And I even managed to get rid of the spiders!' Through the dirt, her face shone with triumph. ‘Anyhow, I figured that since I couldn't see the demons to worry about them, and since you needed a rest, I'd sort out the kitchen first thing.'

As she spoke she sprayed the work surface next to the stove with a good dose of cleaner. A couple of demons that had been rolling about in some unidentified grime, hissed and spat, then rapidly dissolved under the fine drops. Another scrabbled out of the way and fell to the floor, where it evaporated. Fish laughed. Alice rubbed the surface vigorously with the cloth, sweeping up one last squalling demon.

‘I found some coal in the outhouse, only it was a bit webby in there and I'm not going anywhere near it after dark, and I had some matches in the bag and there were even some firelighter things to get it started, in the outhouse, I mean, and look …'

She went to the sink and turned a tap. After a lot of spluttering, water came out.

‘The cottage has got a well. There's a pump and I pumped for HOURS.'

They looked at the brownish water.

‘We can boil some and use it to wash, but I don't think we ought to drink it. We can have the rest of the lemonade and bread and jam for breakfast. I forgot butter. But we're gonna have to get more food and something to drink from somewhere. We'll have to find a shop.'

Fish thought it might be a long walk.

‘Could be a long walk, mind you,' went on Alice grimly. ‘Not a lot around here, as far as I can see!'

They ate breakfast sitting on the back step where there was a paved area, trying to be a patio. It ended in a couple of steps down, a strip of grass and a low wall. Beyond that was open moorland, rolling out before them, decked with heather and shrubs and wild flowers. In the distance and nestling behind a couple of trees, they could make out an old farmhouse.

‘That must be the place we stopped at last night.' Alice pointed with a jammy finger. ‘I wonder who lives there. Better go and say hello when we've eaten.' She looked at Fish's foot. ‘At any rate, after we've done something about you. That looks a right mess!'

She got up and went inside, taking the plates. A moment later she was back with the third bag, the one that didn't contain food or sleeping equipment, which she dumped on the ground next to Fish. She began taking things out of it.

‘Right. Spare money.' She took out an old sponge bag and pulled open the tie ends. It was stuffed with a roll of banknotes. ‘Matches, rope, scissors – cos I didn't have a knife – torch, spare batteries, alarm clock, emergency chocolate and spare knickers.'

Fish blushed.

‘And …' she triumphantly pulled out an old tin that used to hold fancy soaps, ‘… first-aid box. Nicked it from our bathroom. I better get a bowl of water and we'll see what we can do. Oh, and Jed sent you this.' From the bottom of the carrier bag she pulled something red. Jed loved red. It was his all-time favourite colour.

Taking it carefully, Fish held it up. It was Jed's jacket. His favourite jacket, the one he always wore. Fish looked at Alice.

‘He wanted to come too, but his mum would have noticed. He said you probably needed something to keep you warm and dry. You're not going to cry, are you? Good. It was nice of him, though.'

It was more than nice. And it was at that exact moment that Fish understood what friends were all about. Alice and Jed. That was friendship. One had rushed to Fish's rescue at the drop of a hat and the other had given Fish the thing that he valued most in the world as a token of support, just because he couldn't be there too.