It has already been established that Nurd was not in the Great Malevolence’s good books. In fact, Nurd wasn’t sure that the Great Malevolence had any good books, since he was the font of all Evil. It would be a bit like someone who hated flowers secretly filling his house with pansies. Nevertheless, he had a list of demons who had disappointed him and he wasn’t the forgiving type. He also didn’t care much for demonic entities that disobeyed his commands. When you were banished by the Great Malevolence, you stayed banished. If you decided that you’d had enough of banishment, and were tempted to sneak back into Hell’s inner circles in the hope of finding a comfortable dark spot in which to mind your own business, then the Great Malevolence would inevitably find out, because that was the kind of bloke he was. Demons couldn’t die, but they could be made to suffer, and one of the problems with being immortal was that you could suffer for a very, very long time.
Nurd didn’t like suffering. He was quite sensitive, for a demon. He realized that the Great Malevolence must have been planning this attack on the Earth for quite some time, and Nurd hadn’t known about it. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d received a note saying:
No, Nurd had received no such communication, which meant that he was very much not part of the Great Malevolence’s plans. If he were still here when the big guy arrived, Nurd would be given an opportunity to discover just how sensitive he really was, as the Great Malevolence would do his best to inflict as much pain on him as possible for disobeying orders, even if Nurd hadn’t done so intentionally.
It was, Nurd had decided, time to go home and pretend that nothing had happened. His plan, if you could call it that, was to find the portal and sneak back through it to Hell, where he would return to his nice Wasteland until everything calmed down a bit. Nurd wasn’t quite sure how he was going to sneak back, given that he would be moving in the opposite direction to every other demon and foul creature. Perhaps he could tell them that he’d forgotten his keys, or had neglected to pack clean underwear. Anyway, he’d work it out when he got there.
So, once the policemen had finished mowing down corpses, and had gone to see what was happening inside the church, Nurd had simply slipped out of the car and, not to put too fine a point on it, done a runner.
Constable Peel briefly gave chase, but gave up very quickly. Nurd suspected that Constable Peel was quite happy to see the back of Nurd, especially given how badly he smelled. By now, Nurd was getting tired of smelling himself, so the first thing he did was to take a dip in a local pond to clean himself off, scaring one of the nearby ducks half to death.
He was just finishing washing off his underarms when a large eyeball on the end of an arm popped out of the murk and blinked at him. A second arm quickly followed, this one sporting a mouth.
“I say,” said a cultured voice, “do you mind? This is my home, not a public washroom.”
“Very sorry,” said Nurd. “Didn’t know this pond was occupied.”
“Suppose I should put up a sign, really. Not to worry, old boy. Just trying to keep a low profile for the moment, don’tcha know. Lot of pillaging and terrifying going on up there. No place for a gentledemon. Still, can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry demon washing his socks in my water, as it were. No offense meant, of course.”
“None taken,” said Nurd. “I’ll be on my way, then.”
“Righty-ho. If anyone asks, you can tell them that this pond has been claimed.” A third arm appeared, this one holding a homemade flag depicting an eyeball on a red background. It waved the flag in the air.
“Made it m’self,” said the demon proudly. “All m’own design.”
“Very nice,” said Nurd. “Very imaginative. Maybe you should put it where people can see it, though.”
“What a jolly good thought,” said the demon. “You’re a clever one, sir, make no mistake.”
A fourth arm grabbed a passing duck and tied the flag to its neck using a piece of pond weed before depositing the startled duck back in the water. The duck made an attempt to fly away, but the demon held it in place until, eventually, the duck gave up and paddled off with the flag hanging limply from its neck.
Nurd stepped onto the bank, smelling faintly of pond, which was better than what he had reeked of before.
“Good luck with everything,” said Nurd.
“Much appreciated,” said the demon. “You’re always welcome to visit.”
The arms plopped back beneath the surface, leaving the pond still and quiet.
“What a nice chap,” said Nurd to himself. “If only all demons were like him.”
Unfortunately, not all demons were like the thing in the pond. As Nurd sneaked through the town, trying to make his way to the portal, it became clear that the Great Malevolence’s advance guard consisted mainly of some spectacularly vile entities. There was clear evidence of demonic nastiness to be seen: three elderly male members of the Biddlecombe Shooting Club, who had been taking potshots at clay pigeons when the invasion began, had made the mistake of turning their shotguns on a gorgon, its hair a mass of hissing serpents and its eyes so black that they were less organs of sight than dark vacuums, or jellied orbs of nothingness. The shotgun pellets had bounced off the gorgon’s body, and the three old gents had immediately been turned to stone when they caught sight of the creature’s face, so that they now formed an unusual piece of public statuary outside the post office.
There was a lot more blood in the butcher’s shop than there should have been, as the smell of raw meat had attracted a troop of unpleasant carnivores, hunched beings with white flesh that hung from their frames like wax from a melting candle, their heads smooth but eyeless, their nostrils stretched back against their skulls as though unseen fingers had inserted themselves into the holes and pulled hard. The butcher, Mr. Morrissey, had only a few seconds to register the awfulness of the creatures that were invading his premises before their mouths opened, and their fine, sharp teeth were revealed, and they descended upon the hanging carcasses and, in their frenzy, upon Mr. Morrissey himself. When they were done, only bare bones, animal and human, remained, along with Mr. Morrissey’s tattered straw hat.
Two members of the Biddlecombe First XV rugby team had been swallowed up during evening training when, somewhat against the laws of nature and, for that matter, rugby, a pair of fins had erupted from the ground and the unfortunate players were dragged beneath it by what very much resembled sharks armed with webbed claws for digging. The rest of the team had promptly harpooned the monsters with the corner flags.
A platoon of imps, two-foot-high red demons armed with small pitchforks, had attacked a florist’s shop, only to discover that they were all allergic to pollen. Now they were staggering and wheezing all over the street, their eyes streaming and their noses running. This made them easy prey for what was, presumably, the irate owner, a large woman wearing an apron depicting a smiling sunflower, who was beating the imps into submission with a broom.
That was another thing Nurd noticed: the demonic forces were not having an easy time of it. The humans were fighting back. He saw a man on a lawn mower chase a snake demon and turn it into something mushy beneath his blades. A group of schoolchildren dressed as ghouls had encountered half a dozen real ghouls in a park. The ghouls, who were thin and pale and not very interesting looking, seemed a lot less terrifying than the schoolchildren, who had gone heavy on the artificial blood. This impression was confirmed when they began pelting the real ghouls with stones, forcing them to beat a hasty retreat and barricade themselves in a hat shop. The members of the Biddlecombe Ladies’ Choral Society had trapped a raiding party of demon dwarfs in a car park and, using their handbags and songbooks, had reduced them to small piles of pulp wearing hats with bells on the end. Nurd saw parties of humans armed with pitchforks, bats, and brush handles, determined looks on their faces as they marched out to reclaim their town. He wished them luck, knowing that when the Great Malevolence came it would all be over for them.
Nurd stepped over a wheezing imp th
at had staggered into his alleyway. The imp sneezed once, then expired, turning to wisps of smoke that drifted away on the night air. Nurd wondered if the Great Malevolence had anticipated what would happen to his forces once they crossed over from their world into this one: they could be killed. Oh, not permanently killed, but temporarily disposed of, as it were. Mortal rules applied in this world. There was simply not enough demonic energy here to sustain the entities, so that when they died their essence was dispersed, to be absorbed into the larger energy surrounding the Great Malevolence, there to be reconstituted and sent back into battle. The humans couldn’t win, not in the end. All they could hope for were small victories over an enemy that would simply return again in time.
And even that would change once the Great Malevolence crossed over, for he would bring with him all of his evil power, and this world would be transformed into a new Hell.
In the distance, behind some houses, Nurd could see a haze of blue lightning, and he knew that there lay the portal, the gateway between worlds. It was his way home. He thought almost fondly of Wormwood. Almost. Then he remembered Samuel, and hoped that the boy was safe. He wondered if he should try to look for him, but what could he do if he did find Samuel? Take him back to the Wasteland, even if such a thing were possible? No, Samuel would just have to fend for himself, but the thought of the boy in danger or in pain made Nurd feel guilty and sad.
Nurd left the alleyway and began moving in the direction of the light. He decided that it would be best to stay off the streets, so he climbed a garden wall and used the hedges and bushes for cover, advancing from garden to garden, sticking to the shadows.
He was in his third garden when his skin began to tingle. There was great power nearby. He could sense it. He peered through a gap in a hedge and spied a pair of creatures, one spiderlike, the other a huge toad, scuttling and hopping down the street. He recognized them both.
Nurd sank to the ground and tried to make himself as small as possible. This was grave news. Those two demons were bad enough, but they were merely servants of a greater evil. Where they went a being infinitely worse inevitably followed, a being intimately acquainted with Nurd and his wrongdoings. That being was Ba’al. Ba’al, the Great Malevolence’s trusted lieutenant, the one who had condemned Nurd to eternal banishment, had already crossed over, and Nurd had a pretty good idea of where the senior demon would be.
Ba’al would be waiting at the portal for its master to arrive.
XXIX
In Which Nurd Proves to Be Rather Decent, Actually
IT WAS SAMUEL WHO spotted what appeared to be a demon hiding behind the hedge in the front garden. Crouching behind a hedge didn’t seem like very demonic behavior to Samuel, whose experiences of demons until now had shown him that they were variously frightening, puzzling, or, in the case of the one that had briefly occupied the space beneath his bed, simply not very good at their jobs; but so far he had encountered only one that appeared to be cowardly.
“What do you think of that?” Maria asked him, as they stood in the darkened kitchen, watching the demon.
“Maybe it’s planning to jump out at someone,” said Tom.
“It’s a him, not an ‘it,’” said Samuel. “His name is Nurd, and he’s the one who popped up in my bedroom. He’s obviously frightened. You can see that from here.”
“Well, I don’t really fancy asking this Nurd about his problems,” said Tom. “’Excuse me, Mister Demon, is ‘oo frightened? Is ‘oo having a bad day?’ I mean, he’s a demon. He’s supposed to be frightening us. It would have to be something pretty terrible to make a demon tremble.”
They were silent as they considered the implications of what Tom had just said. What could be so frightening that even a demon would be terrified by it? Samuel watched Nurd. He now appeared to be biting his nails nervously. Nurd may have been a demon but Samuel knew that there was some good in him, even if Nurd had wanted to rule the world. Anyway, what was that old saying, something about an enemy’s enemy being your friend …?
He moved to the kitchen door. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“Are you sure about this, Samuel?” asked Mrs. Johnson. Dr. Planck tried to protest, but the others shushed him.
“It’s worth a try. If he looks like he’s about to turn nasty, we can just lock the door again, or Tom can wave his bat at him, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. To be honest, I rather like him.”
Samuel opened the door and put his head to the crack.
“Psssst!”
Nurd, who was already somewhat tense, almost wet himself at the sound. He looked around to see the head of a small boy wearing glasses poking through a gap in a doorway.
“What are you doing in my garden?” said Samuel.
“What does it look like?” replied Nurd. “I’m hiding. Go away, Samuel, it’s dangerous.”
“Why are you hiding? Aren’t they your friends out there?”
“That lot?” said Nurd, gesturing with a big thumb. “They’re no friends of mine. In fact, if some of them found out I was here, I’d be in terrible trouble.”
“Which brings us back to the whole hiding thing,” said Samuel.
“Exactly,” said Nurd.
“Look,” said Samuel, “if we let you hide in here, will you help stop all this?”
Nurd risked another glance through the hedge. He clearly didn’t like what he saw, because he nodded briskly.
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “I really would just like to go home.”
“Well, come on then,” said Samuel. He opened the door wider, and stepped aside as Nurd shuffled across the lawn and shot through the gap. Once the door had closed behind him, Nurd took a relieved breath and looked around. He saw Samuel, looking thoughtful; Tom, holding a bat as though he were aching for an excuse to use it; Maria, who was sucking on a pencil and wrinkling her nose at the faint smell of pond that was coming off Nurd, and, um, was that poo?; and Mrs. Johnson, who was clutching a frying pan determinedly. In one corner of the kitchen a man with a beard was trying to hide under a blanket. Nurd knew exactly how he felt.
“Hello,” said Nurd. “I’m Nurd. Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities. Actually, just plain old Nurd will be fine. I don’t think I want to be the scourge of deities anymore. If I never see a demonic deity again, it will be too soon. Mind if I get up from the floor?”
The people in the kitchen looked dubiously at him, except for Samuel, who said, “Honestly, everyone, we can trust him.”
Eventually, Tom said, “Okay, but do it slowly.”
Nurd did do it slowly because he had hurt his knee while diving into the kitchen. He took a seat at the table and rested his chin in his hands. He seemed very miserable, and entirely unthreatening. While Samuel and the others watched, a single big tear trickled down one of his cheeks.
“I’m really sorry,” said Nurd, wiping it away in embarrassment. “It’s been a funny old evening.”
Everyone looked sympathetic, even if he was a demon. Mrs. Johnson put down her frying pan and pointed to a kettle that was currently simmering on a camping gas stove.
“Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea?” she said. “Everything feels better after a cup of tea.”
Nurd didn’t know what tea was, but it couldn’t taste any worse than the stuff in the sewer.
“That would be very nice,” he said. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Johnson poured him a cup of strong tea, and added a digestive biscuit to the saucer. Nurd sipped carefully, if noisily, and nibbled at the biscuit. He was pleasantly surprised by both.
“It’s nicer if you dunk it,” said Samuel, demonstrating with his fingers.
Nurd dipped the biscuit into the tea.
“That is good, actually,” he said. He dunked the biscuit a second time, but on this occasion he left it in for too long, and half of it fell into his cup. He looked like he was about to cry again.
“Just my luck,” he said.
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Johnson, rescuing the soggy biscui
t with a spoon. “Plenty more where that came from.”
“So,” said Samuel. “Perhaps you could tell us what’s happening.”
“Well, it’s Hell on Earth, isn’t it?” said Nurd. “Gates have opened, demons are pouring out. End of the world, and all that.”
“Can we stop it?”
“Dunno. If you’re going to do something, you’d best do it quickly because this lot are just the advance guard. As soon as the Great Malevolence himself comes through, it’ll be too late. He’ll be too strong for anyone to stop.” Nurd chewed glumly on his second biscuit. “He really isn’t very friendly at all.”
“But you came through the gates with the others, didn’t you?” said Samuel.
“No, that’s just it,” said Nurd. “I came on my own. Like I told you before, I keep popping from one dimension into the next. One minute I was sitting on my throne in the Wasteland, hitting Wormwood on the head and minding my own business, and the next moment I was here. Now I appear to have ended up here permanently. I tried to make the best of it. In fact”— Nurd coughed slightly ashamedly into his hand— “I had hoped to rule the world. Oh, I’d have been very decent about it. None of this terrorizing and demonic nonsense. All I really wanted was a bit of adoration and a nice car. Apart from that, I’d hardly have bothered anybody. Unfortunately I think there’s going to be some competition for the position, so I’ve decided to abandon my hopes and go home.”
“So you just sort of teleported26 here?” asked Tom, who was a big fan of Star Trek and quite fancied the idea of being transferred from one place to another instantly.
Nurd shrugged, not entirely understanding the question, then looked at Maria, who was still sucking her pencil and regarding him with an intense gaze.
“Why’s she looking at me like that?” said Nurd. “What’ve I done?”
“Apart from being a demon, and planning to rule the world, you mean?” said Tom.