The Book of Doom (23 page)

NGELO LOOKED PREHISTORIC.
Not like a dinosaur, exactly, more like the thing that had killed all the dinosaurs off. And probably without even trying.

He stood seven or eight metres tall, with his horns adding eighty or ninety more centimetres on top. The horns scraped along the ceiling as he lumbered forward, his scaly red knuckles trailing across the floor, each thunderous footstep shaking the room.

“Yes,” cackled Haures. “Yes! What a specimen you are! What a specimen you—
Oof!
”

The back of Angelo’s hand swatted Haures across the room. The Duke of Hell was laughing with delight as he crunched into the metal barricade Zac was hiding behind. Both Haures and the barricade tumbled on for several metres, before rolling to a stop.

Suddenly exposed, Zac straightened up and locked eyes with the Angelo-demon. Bones grew like tusks from the monster’s neck and jaw. The fire in his eyes burned with such ferocity it looked like the whole top half of his head was ablaze. He snorted like a racehorse after a sprint, and each time he did, rings of black smoke blew from his wide nostrils.

“What did they do to you?” said Zac softly.

“We set him free,” said Haures, limping in Zac’s direction. “Impressive, isn’t he?” He looked the intruder up and down. “How did you get back down here, by the way?”

Zac didn’t answer.

Haures shrugged. “They tried to neuter him,” he continued. “
Up there.
They tried to smother his dark side, kill it off. But you can’t kill
that
. How can you kill
that
? All they did was bottle it up. And all we had to do was take the lid off.”

The Angelo-demon’s fist swung down at them. Zac and Haures leaped in opposite directions and the knuckles shattered the floor where they’d stood.

“And this is what you’re left with!” Zac shouted. “He’s out of control. He’ll tear the whole place apart.”

“We’ll train him,” Haures smirked. “We’ll
break
him, and we’ll keep breaking him until he does exactly as we say.”

“Then you’re doing just what Heaven did,” Zac said. He ducked as Angelo’s Boa Constrictor-like tail whistled by above his head. “You’re only letting him be one thing – but now you’re bottling up his angel side.”

Haures snorted. “So once in a blue moon he’ll lose control and do some really impressive charity work. I can live with that.”

The demon duke feinted left as Angelo’s tail snapped down at him. “He’s already learned some basic commands,” said Haures, recovering quickly. “Watch this.”

Haures stabbed a clawed finger in Zac’s direction. “Angelo!” he barked. The Angelo-demon’s ears pricked up. It gazed down at the much smaller demon, unblinking. Haures smiled. “Kill.”

Slowly, like a shadow at sunset, Angelo’s gaze went to Zac.

“Don’t,” Zac said. “Don’t do this, Angelo. You know me. Try to rememb—”

A guttural howl drowned out the rest of Zac’s words. The Angelo-demon charged, claws swiping, fire spewing from his cavernous throat. Zac rolled, ducked, turned, ran. All around him was the crackling of the flames and the cackling of demonic laughter and the steady
boom boom boom
of footsteps chasing him down.

The crumpled jail cell stood just ahead. Zac powered forward. If he could make it there, he could buy himself a few seconds. If he could buy himself a few seconds, he could come up with a plan. And if he could come up with a plan, then maybe this wouldn’t have to go down as the most botched rescue attempt in the history of the human race.

The pointed tip of Angelo’s tail streaked by him. There was a nerve-splitting screeching
sound as the tail tore through a metal wall, and then the entire cell was jerked up into the air.

Zac saw the shadow of the metal box grow larger around him. He hurled himself out of the way just as the cell was brought smashing down against the floor.

Clambering back to his feet, Zac swung the large water gun into his hands. “I didn’t want to do this,” he said, taking aim. “But you’re not leaving me any choice.”

He squeezed the trigger. A jet of holy water hit the Angelo-demon square in the chest, but the monster didn’t react.

“Immune to the effects of holy water,” roared Haures. “This just gets better and better!”

Angelo brought a foot stomping down towards Zac’s head. Zac avoided it, but only just, and with each miss he made, Angelo became angrier and more aggressive. If Zac was going to take the demon down, he had to do it now.

He ran from the giant demon, not trying to escape, but trying to make space. As he ran, he dug in his pocket and pulled out the little black bag Argus had given him. He heard the footsteps of the Angelo-demon thudding after him. He stopped. He emptied the bag into his hand. And then he tossed the contents towards the oncoming beast.

The eyes rattled like marbles on the hard floor. They began to roll just as one of Angelo’s feet came down on them. The foot slid sharply forward and the demon became horizontal in the air. All ten circles of Hell shook when he hit the ground.

Zac and Haures exchanged a glance, then they both set off running. Zac reached the fallen Angelo first. He leaped up on to his bare chest and fired a spray of holy water towards Haures, forcing the duke to duck for cover.

“Get away from him! What are you doing?” Haures demanded, but Zac was no longer listening to him. He scrambled along Angelo’s chest until he could look him in the eye.

“Angelo, it’s me. It’s Zac,” he said. “I know you’re in there. I hope you can hear me.”

He paused to scoosh more holy water at Haures, keeping him at bay.

“This isn’t you, Angelo,” he said. “Not really. This is what they made you, up there and down here. This is what they turned you into.”

A low growl rumbled from Angelo’s throat, but he wasn’t yet moving to attack.

“Up there they tried to make you an angel, and down here all they want you to be is a demon, but the real you is somewhere in the middle.” He shot more holy water backwards over his shoulder. Haures gave a yelp of panic and leaped out of harm’s way.

“Don’t listen to him, boy! Listen to your Uncle Haures.”

“I thought we were nothing alike, but I was wrong, Angelo,” Zac said. “You’re
exactly
like me – not perfect, but you’re not a demon, either. You’re exactly like
everyone
.” He stared deep into the fireballs that were Angelo’s eyes. “The one good thing they did for you up there was give you those Hulk comics. Everyone thinks the Hulk’s a monster, but he isn’t. That’s what you said. All he wants is for people to stop trying to hurt him. All he wants is a friend. Right? Just like you, Angelo. Just like you. That’s why you love the Hulk, Angelo. You
are
the Hulk.”

Angelo’s breaths were coming more slowly now. The angry scowl on his face had relaxed just a fraction.

“
Enough!”
boomed Haures from down by the fallen giant’s knees. The demon duke raised both hands and fire flew from his fingertips. Pain contorted Angelo’s face again, and as the pain faded it was replaced by something savage. His eyes fixed on Zac. His mouth pulled into a snarl. A voice like a tropical storm roared out from within him.

“Angelo
smash
!”

He began to sit up, and Zac was forced to grab on to one of his tusks to stop himself tumbling to the floor.

“Yes!” bellowed Haures, dancing backwards. “Kill him. Kill the human! Kill him now!”

Zac had one chance. He gave the water gun a shake and listened to the liquid sloshing around inside it. There was a litre of the stuff left, possibly less. Even if it did work, would it be enough?

Angelo began to stand. Dangling from his tusk, Zac fired every last drop of the holy water into the demon’s mouth. There was a sizzle, but a faint one. Angelo stopped rising. He looked past his nose to where Zac hung. He raised his eyebrows. And then he licked his lips.

“M-more,” slurred Angelo, and the breath felt to Zac as if an oven door had been opened right in front of his face. He remembered the pistols in his waistband, thought about emptying the water into the mouth, then decided just to toss the guns in themselves. They cracked between Angelo’s teeth, then he gave a low moan of satisfaction as the blessed liquid trickled down his throat.

“Y-yuummeeee...”

“That’s it,” Zac said. “Remember. Remember who you are, Angelo. Remember who you are.”

“S-s-scrummeee...”

Zac finished the sentence for him. “In your tummy.”

“
What are you doing?”
Haures roared. He raised his hands again and his fingers glowed white-hot. “Whatever it is, stop or I’ll—”

CRUNCH!

Angelo’s tail sent him hurtling through the air again. This time Haures didn’t laugh as he thudded against the far wall and slid down on to the floor.

“Z-zaaac,” mumbled Angelo, his brow creasing as he struggled to form the word. Zac almost cheered.

“Yes! It’s me!” he said. “Can you... can you understand me?”

Quaking with the effort, Angelo nodded his head. The jerky movement almost made Zac lose his grip, but he wrapped his other arm round the tusk and swung himself up on to Angelo’s scaly shoulder.

He glanced down at what was left of the room. Over in the far corner, Haures was getting shakily back to his feet. “Want to get out of here?” Zac asked.

Angelo nodded again. He stood up, then squatted down low. “Yssss,” he said, and then his legs straightened and his hands reached up and together they tore through the ceiling of the tenth circle of Hell.

AC TUCKED HIMSELF
in behind the Angelo-demon’s head as a chunk of the ceiling collapsed around them. The clanging of the alarm bell and the yelps of panic from the demons above rushed down to meet them, and Zac felt Angelo’s muscles tense in panic.

“Ignore it,” he said. “They can’t hurt you. Just get us out of here.”

Angelo pulled himself through the hole he had created and they emerged on to the zigzag carpet beside the fountain of blood. The nine circles of Hell stretched up above them. From down there, the first circle seemed an impossible distance away.

At least, it did to Zac. Angelo was already on the move. He crouched down low again and his legs fired like pistons, propelling them upwards. His huge hands reached out, smashed through the frosted-glass barrier, then caught hold of the edge of the seventh circle. The demons on that floor screamed and scurried for safety as Angelo reached a hand up to the sixth circle and began to climb.

“Stop them!” commanded a voice over the Tannoy system. Zac recognised the tones of the Dark Lord himself. He did not sound impressed. “The specimen must not be permitted to escape. Whoever stops them will be given the human to do with as they see fit.”

Zac saw several hundred dark eyes turn to him and gleam. “Keep climbing, Angelo,” he urged as the demon stretched an arm up to the next floor.

One of the larger and braver demons on the fourth circle hurled himself towards Zac, claws bared, teeth gnashing. But his leap was woefully misjudged. Zac watched the creature begin frantically flapping his arms as he fell past, then heard the distant
whumpf
as his face was introduced to the carpet.

The fourth circle was heaving with demons, all undeterred by the fate of their fallen colleague. They gathered near the edge, ready to hurl themselves on to Angelo’s shoulders as he drew level with them.

“On three, lads!” one of them shouted. “One... two...”

Angelo opened his mouth and an inferno rolled across the corridor. The demons retreated, throwing up their arms to shield their eyes. They lowered them in time to see a foot passing by the corridor as Angelo stretched up to a higher floor.

His claws scraped against the edge of the third circle. He gritted his razor-sharp teeth and stretched further, until his fingertips found purchase on the edge of the floor.

Zac felt the muscles on the Angelo-demon’s back contract, even as he felt the first stirrings of panic fluttering in his own stomach. He looked at Angelo’s horns. They were several centimetres shorter than they had been just a few seconds ago. His neck and shoulders now seemed significantly less broad too, and his hard scales felt considerably softer.

“You’re shrinking! Why are you shrinking?” Zac groaned. “Not now. Don’t change back now!”

“S-sorry,” Angelo groaned. He was looking more and more like his old self with each moment that passed – an enormous version, granted, but his old self all the same.

His skin was going from red to a flushed pink. His horns had all but retreated into his skull. When he reached for the next floor, his arm fell a metre short. He was barely twice the size of Zac now, and he was shrinking fast.

Demons swarmed along the floors above and below them, fighting each other to be the one who stopped the escape.

Zac searched desperately for a way out, for a way past the squawking, chittering hordes, but there was no time to plan, no time for anything as Angelo returned to normal size. Clinging to each other, they fell. Down through the circles of Hell. Down past the braying demons. Down towards the broken floor and the shadowy embrace of the tenth circle beyond.

A sound, like a ripple of applause, filled the air around them. Hands caught Zac firmly beneath the arms and their descent began to slow. He tightened his grip round Angelo and looked up. A pair of feathery white wings filled his field of view.

An angel
, he thought, until he saw the bloody wound on one of the wings and instead thought:
a
Valkyrie
.

“Stop squirming,” Herya hissed, her face contorted in pain as she beat both wings as hard as she could.

“I wasn’t squirming.”

“Well, stop talking then!” she spat.

“Is that Herya?” Angelo asked.

“Yeah.”

“Hooray! Hello, Herya! You came back for us!”

The Valkyrie hissed again. “Regretting it already.”

Zac felt his toes brush against the carpet. He caught a glimpse of Haures’s fiery eyes blazing in the darkness of the tenth circle, and then they were rising again, climbing, soaring up towards the upper floors of Hell.

As they passed the third floor, a chubby demon with a Mohican haircut took aim with something that looked worryingly like a bazooka. A door flew open behind him and another demon in red pyjamas emerged. The new arrival raised a particularly heavy hardback copy of
Jekyll & Hyde
above his head, then brought it smashing down on the back of the other demon’s Mohican.

The demon stumbled forward and crashed through the frosted-glass barrier. His eyes went wide. “Ooh, bugger,” he mumbled, and then he and the bazooka went down as Herya and her cargo went up.

“Go on, son!” cheered Murmur, punching the air in triumph.

“Thanks, Dad!” Angelo shouted back. He waved enthusiastically as they passed the third circle and carried on all the way up to the first.

A squadron of uniformed demons were ready and waiting for them. “Halt!” commanded the leader. “In the name of the Dark Lord, Satan, I command you to—”

He stopped talking as Herya’s forehead met his nose. The rest of his platoon stood gaping in surprise. Many of them had dreamed of the day their commanding officer would be cut down to size, but now it had come they weren’t quite sure how they felt about it.

Zac didn’t hesitate. He cut through them, all fists and feet and elbows and knees. Herya mopped up what was left, and in moments the three of them were surrounded by little mounds of unconscious monsters.

Angelo gave a low whistle, then smiled. “Crumbs. That was exciting, wasn’t it?”

Zac looked the skinny boy up and down. “What I want to know,” he said, “is how have you
still
managed to keep those trousers on?”

Herya was staring down at the senseless demons. She drew in a deep breath. “A fight. My gods. I was in a real fight.”

Zac laid a hand on her shoulder. “You OK?”

“Are you kidding? That was
brilliant
!” she giggled. “Let’s find more of them and do it again.”

“Let’s not,” suggested Zac.

“
Cretins
,” crackled the voice of the Dark Lord. “Stop them! Stop them now! Do not let them get to the main door.
Do not let them escape!
”

“Main door’s this way,” said Zac, leading them towards the exit he knew led to the reception area. He yanked it open and they tumbled inside. “Now, out here and we’re home and dry.”

A small figure in a large suit sat on the other side of the reception desk, his hands behind his head, his feet resting on the table. He gave a vague wave of his hand and the double doors that led out of Hell melted away and were replaced with solid rock.

“Surprise,” said Satan. There was a sound like inrushing air, and Haures appeared in the doorway behind them. The Dark Lord leaned in towards the intercom again. “
Oh, don’t let them get to the main doors
,” he said in a falsetto voice. “
Whatever will we do if they reach the main doors?
”

Zac heard Angelo gasp. “This was a trap,” the half-angel whispered.

“You think?”

“Who are you?” demanded Herya, eyeballing the Dark Lord.

Zac did the introductions. “Herya, Satan. Satan, Herya.”

Herya dialled the eyeballing back a few notches. “Oh,” she said, then said nothing more.

“And the gentleman behind you is Haures,” Satan said. “He’s one of the Dukes of—”

“Hazzard,” said Zac and Angelo together, then they exchanged a quick high five.

The Dark Lord swung his feet down and emerged from behind the desk. “Very amusing,” he said. He regarded Zac. “So you came back for your colleague.”

“No,” said Zac. “I came back for my
friend
.”

“Ker-ching!” cheered Angelo. “Back of the net!” He tried to hug Zac, but was nudged away.

“Not now,” Zac told him.

Grinning broadly, Angelo began body-popping. “
He likes me. He likes me. He really, really likes me
,” he sang in a robotic voice.

The demons watched him in bemused silence. After several seconds, Angelo stopped dancing. He coughed quietly. “Carry on.”

Satan hesitated. “Right...” he said a little uncertainly. “Angelo will be taken back down and restored to his true form, while you two are given to some of my more... creative staff to have fun with.” He smiled thinly. “Fun for them, you understand? Not for you.”

The Dark Lord returned to the Tannoy and began calling for reinforcements. Zac, Angelo and Herya stood back to back, allowing them to keep an eye on both demons at once.

“What do we do?” whispered the Valkyrie.

Zac’s mind raced. “I... I don’t know.”

“Why did I come back for you?” Herya groaned. “I could’ve been in Vegas by now.”

“Shut up and let me think.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Angelo said, “but you won’t like it.”

“Right now, I’m prepared to try almost anything,” Zac replied. Satan looked up from the Tannoy microphone, a vague expression of amusement on his face. From out in the corridor, Zac could hear the sound of hurried footsteps approaching. “What’s the idea?”

Angelo took a deep breath. “We pray.”

“Pray? That’s your idea? We pray?”

“Have you got a better one?”

“I told you, I’m not praying,” Zac said.

Satan took a step closer. “What are you whispering about, little ones?” he asked them, and his forked tongue flicked across his lips.

“Come on, what harm can it do?” Angelo asked.

“Whatever you’re planning, just do it,” Herya urged. She had her fists raised, but it was clear from the way her shoulders sagged that she didn’t fancy their chances.

“You said you’d try anything,” Angelo reminded him.

“I said
almost
anything.”

“Just do
something
!” Herya yelped.

“Oh, all right,” Zac snapped. He pressed his hands together. “Dear God, please save us,” he said. He turned to Angelo. “Happy now?”

“You didn’t say
Amen
.”

Zac sighed. “Oh, well I’m sorry,” he said. “
Amen
.”

And as the word left his lips, the air was filled with blinding light and a joyous chorus of
Hallelujahs
.

Zac rubbed his eyes.

Angelo and Herya and Satan and Haures all rubbed their eyes too. As did the little old man who was suddenly just there, sitting in his favourite armchair in the corner of his living room.

Zac looked around at the familiar wallpaper, the familiar carpet, the familiar everything. He looked at his grandfather, who was staring open-mouthed at the five figures who had suddenly appeared in his front room out of the blue.

“Granddad?” Zac muttered. Phillip turned towards him and an expression of relief crossed the old man’s face.

“Oh, Zac, there you are,” he said. His fingers squashed his globe-patterned stress ball over and over. “I heard you, Zac. In my head. I heard you calling for help.
Please save us
, that’s what you said. I heard you.”

Zac frowned. “What? I mean... you did?”

“Hey, look. It’s like the song,” chirped Angelo. He nudged Zac in the ribs and pointed at Phillip’s stress ball. “Your granddad. He’s got the whole world in his hands!”

Zac stared at the globe. Then he stared at the old man’s brilliant blue eyes. All those voices his granddad had heard for all those years. Asking him for help.

No, not asking.

Praying
for help.

He had heard their prayers, and as far as Zac had ever been told, there was only one being who could hear people’s prayers. One
supreme
being.

“Oh,” said Zac. He swallowed. “My God.”