The Book of Doom (4 page)

“Because an angel in Hell is going to stand out, I’m guessing. I want to get in and out without making a scene,” Zac said. “Also, I’m still an atheist, so technically I don’t even believe in angels. You two included.”

“Well, I’m afraid there’s nobody else,” Gabriel said. He tapped a manicured fingernail against his flawless teeth. It made a sound like footsteps on marble. “Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“There is one who may be able to help, although he has nowhere near the strength or experience of Michael.”

“I don’t need strength or experience, I just need a guide,” Zac shrugged. “Is he an angel?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name? It’s... ah... yes. His name is Angelo.”

“Angelo?” said Zac flatly. “And he’s not an angel?”

“No. Yes. Well he’s
half
angel. But he’s the closest thing to a human that we have.”

Zac jumped up and pulled the drawstring of the closest blinds. They lifted, letting a flood of sunlight into the room. He gestured at the busy city-centre plaza beyond the glass, and the hundreds of people who milled about there, all happily going about their business.

“Humans,” Zac said. “Dead ones, maybe, but humans. What about one of them?”

“Send a
guest
?” Gabriel gasped, his eyes widening. “We couldn’t possibly do that. Think of the paperwork. No,” he said, shaking his head. “It is Angelo, or it is Michael. The choice, Zac Corgan, is yours.”

“Angelo, then,” said Zac. It wasn’t a difficult decision. He’d met Michael less than an hour ago, but already he wanted to stay as far away from him as possible.

“Very good,” said Gabriel. “Michael, would you be so kind as to fetch young Angelo for me?”

Michael nodded, shot a final glare at Zac, then pulled open the door. A look of exaggerated surprise crossed his face. “Oh, now would you look at that,” he said. “What are the chances?”

He let the door open all the way. Gabriel looked past the other archangel and then he too reacted with shock. “Angelo? Just walking past at that very moment! What a stroke of good fortune.”

Michael stepped aside. Zac saw the figure framed in the doorway.

“Oh, come on,” he sighed as Angelo shuffled into the room. “You have
got
to be kidding me.”

T WAS THE
T-shirt the boy was wearing that had first caught Zac’s eye. It was white, with yellow print on the front in the style of the
Baywatch
logo. The text read:

M
Y
L
IFEGUARD
W
ALKS ON
W
ATER

And then, underneath, for those struggling to work it out:

(B
ECAUSE
H
E’S
J
ESUS
)

The rest of Angelo wasn’t much more promising, either. He was a good fifteen to twenty centimetres shorter than Zac, and about half the width across the shoulders. The T-shirt hung loosely from his skinny frame, reaching down almost to his knees.

The knees themselves were on full display, knobbly and ever-so-slightly grass-stained. His legs were also bare, and Zac really hoped the boy was wearing some kind of shorts beneath the trailing shirt.

On his feet, Angelo wore flip-flops with I L
OVE
M
AJORCA
printed in jolly lettering across the plastic strap. They were the most violent shade of fluorescent green Zac had ever laid eyes on.

Zac’s gaze went from the feet to Angelo’s face. The boy looked young – eleven or twelve, at a guess – with eyes that seemed cartoonishly large. His hair was blond, like the angels’, but it was a dirty, brownish blond, cut into an uneven bowl shape round his head.

Angelo smiled nervously. “Good King Wenceslas walks into a pizza shop,” he said. His voice was wobbly and unbalanced, as if he were still learning how to use it.

“What?”

“It’s a joke,” Angelo explained. “Good King Wenceslas walks into a pizza shop, and the assistant asks, ‘How do you want your pizza?’ And Good King Wenceslas says, ‘Deep pan, crisp and even.’”

The boy’s huge eyes blinked several times. He watched Zac, waiting for a reaction.

“You know? The song,” he added. He began to sing. “
Good King Wenceslas looked out...
”

Zac nodded. “Yeah.”

“Deep pan, crisp and even.”

“Yeah.”

There was silence. Somewhere close by, Gabriel coughed gently.

“You don’t get it, do you,” Angelo said. “Deep
pan
—”

“No, no. I get it,” Zac cut in. He looked back at the archangels. “It’s not too late to change my mind, is it?”

Gabriel smiled his politician-smile and clapped Zac on the shoulder. “Oh, I think you two are going to get along like a house on fire.”

There was no mistaking Angelo’s room. It was like a bricks and mortar version of the boy himself.

The walls were a dull white, but decked out in brightly coloured posters. One picture showed an electric guitar with the words J
ESUS
R
OCKS!
emblazoned across it in blue writing.

Keeping with the guitar theme, the next poster featured a large, gold-coloured plectrum. I P
ICK
J
ESUS!
was carved into the plectrum’s surface.

There were two or three other posters too, but the one that caught Zac’s eye was a full-length picture of Christ himself. It reminded Zac of a painting he’d stolen once, but this was no painting. It was a photograph.

Jesus was standing in a wheat field, with the sunlight casting a halo behind his head. With one hand he held a lamb, tucked up under his arm. With the other hand he was giving a thumbs up to camera, while flashing a smile so sincere it could’ve shattered concrete at a hundred paces.

“That’s Jesus,” Angelo said. He was sitting on the edge of the room’s narrow bed, his feet swinging a few centimetres off the bare wooden floor. “He’s my hero.”

Zac scanned over the other posters. “So I see.”

“Well, him or the Incredible Hulk. It’s hard to choose,” Angelo said. “I mean, Jesus is the son of God, and sacrificed himself for the sins of all mankind and everything, but the Hulk can punch a tank into outer space. So I don’t know who to pick.”

“Yeah,” replied Zac absent-mindedly, “it’s tricky.”

“I love the Hulk. I mean, I love all superheroes, but the Hulk is the best. Everyone thinks he’s a monster, but he’s not. He’s one of the good guys. He just wants people to stop trying to hurt him. He just wants a friend.” Angelo blushed and squeezed out a bashful smile. “Have you ever read any Hulk comics?”

Zac shook his head. “No. Not lately.”

“I’ve got loads of them here, if you want to borrow them,” Angelo said. “That’s... that’s what friends do, isn’t it? Lend each other stuff.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Zac said. He strolled over to Angelo’s bookcase. The room was tiny, so it didn’t take long. He cocked his head to the side and studied the shelves. It was mostly Bibles on there, all different shapes and sizes. Down on the bottom shelf, though, were several different versions of Robert Louis Stevenson’s
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
, half a dozen superhero graphic novels, and a book full of diagrams of the
USS Enterprise
. There were also seven different editions of the
Star Wars
trilogy on DVD, each one only marginally different to the ones before.

“Have you ever met him?” Angelo asked.

“Jesus?”

“The Hulk.”

Zac looked back over his shoulder at Angelo. The boy was still perched on the bed, his huge eyes filled with hopeful expectation.

“No,” Zac said, turning his back on the bookcase. “Never met him.”

“He moves around a lot, that’s probably why,” said Angelo. “If you do ever meet him, whatever you do, don’t make him angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.”

“Right,” said Zac, with only a momentary pause. “I’ll keep that in mind. You like Jekyll and Hyde too, I see.”

“Not really,” Angelo shrugged. He shifted uneasily. “Gabriel keeps bringing them to me. He thinks it’s good for me to read them, with the whole half-blood thing. He got me into the Hulk to begin with too.”

“Right.” Zac looked around the room again. It was small and windowless, with just one door. There were only the two of them there, and they had only been in the room a few minutes, but already he was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

“So,” he began, looking Angelo up and down again. “Why you?”

Angelo smiled anxiously. “What do you mean?”

“They had you come and wait outside the door. They knew I’d say no to Michael coming with me, so they had you lined up. Why?”

“I don’t...”

“What did they say to you? Why did Michael tell you to wait outside?”

Angelo smiled bashfully. “They said they’d found me a friend. He said we could be friends. You and me. So, um... Can we?”

“No,” said Zac. “We can’t.”

Angelo’s smile stayed fixed, but he looked away from the boy in black. “What? Oh. Right. What? I mean, yes. OK.” He wriggled uncomfortably on his bed. “It’s just, see, I don’t have many friends.”

“I don’t have any. Suits me just fine.” He saw the hurt behind Angelo’s fixed smile and softened slightly. “I mean, look, I’m sure you’re a great kid and everything, but... you’re too young to be my friend. That’s it. Too young. It’d be weird.”

“I’m nearly a thousand years old in human years,” Angelo said curtly.

“Really?” asked Zac after a pause. “You’re bearing up well. What’s that in angel years?”

Angelo scratched his ear. “Um... about twelve.”

“Right,” said Zac. “That’s what I thought.”

There was a rhythmic knock on the door, then the handle turned and the door swung inward. Gabriel stepped through, his smile still frozen in place.

“Apologies for the slight delay. I trust you two have been getting to know each other?” the angel said.

Angelo looked quickly to Zac, then down at his flip-flops. Zac folded his arms across his chest and leaned on the bookcase. Neither of them spoke.

“Splendid,” said Gabriel, not faltering. “Splendid. I have a gift for you, Zac. Put this on.” He held up a cheap-looking digital watch.

Zac took the watch and turned it over in his hands. It was made of flimsy black plastic. He had found a similar watch in a Christmas cracker once, and it had gone straight in the bin.

“What does this do?” he asked.

“It tells the time,” Gabriel replied.

Zac looked at the watch again. “Is that it?”

“No. Angelo has one too. It will allow the two of you to stay in contact if you become separated. It will also allow you to get in touch with us when you have the book. At which point, we’ll be able to retrieve you.”

He watched Zac secure the strap across his wrist. “Splendid. It has other functions too. Angelo will explain.”

“Right,” said Angelo, holding up his wrist and pointing to his own watch. It was identical to the one Zac wore. “You see this button here?”

“Later, Angelo,” Gabriel said with a hint of annoyance. “Explain later. There’s no time now.”

“Oh,” said Angelo, deflated. “Right. Later.”

Gabriel looked down at Zac and lowered his smile a few calculated notches. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Zac nodded.

“Very good. We have reason to believe the book is being held by a demon named Haures. A Duke of Hell, no less. We’re informed he’s keeping it in the tenth circle. You will have to find your own way in, I’m afraid.”

“Tenth circle? I thought there were only supposed to be nine circles of Hell.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows knotted above his nose. “Yes. So did we. I have no idea what you will find waiting there, but I do know that if you fail, then everything – the very existence of the cosmos itself – will be in grave peril. The book is the ultimate weapon, Zac. Do not forget that.”

“No pressure, then.”

The angel smiled thinly. “Quite.” He stepped aside. Angelo hopped down off the bed and stood next to Zac. He pulled his long T-shirt up and tucked it untidily into the white shorts that Zac was relieved to see he was wearing beneath it. Then he held out a hand. Zac peered at it.

“You have to hold my hand,” Angelo said. “Or it won’t work.”

Zac sighed, rolled his eyes, then locked his fingers with Angelo’s. Gabriel gave a single nod.

“Peace be with you,” he said.

“Peace be with you,” replied Angelo automatically.

“Oh, and rest assured, Zac, I shall ensure your grandfather is well looked after in your absence.”

Zac felt his muscles tense. His grip on Angelo’s hand tightened, making the boy gasp.

“Right. Whatever,” he growled. “Can we just—”

There was a blip of light, like the flash of a camera. Zac’s stomach heaved, as if he were looping the loop on a roller coaster, and then everything was plunged into sudden darkness.