Everyone laughed. Bobby Goddard kicked the back of Samuel’s seat.
Samuel sighed.
So that was why Mr. Hume had called Samuel’s mother, and afterward she had given Samuel a talking-to about taking school seriously, and not teasing Mr. Hume, who appeared to be, she said, “a little sensitive.”
Samuel glanced at his watch. His mother would be gone by now, which meant that Stephanie the babysitter would be waiting for him when he returned. Stephanie had been fine when she had first started looking after Samuel a couple of years before, but recently she had become horrible in the way that only certain teenage girls can. She had a boyfriend named Garth who would sometimes come over to “keep her company,” which meant that Samuel would be rushed off to bed well before his bedtime. Even when Garth wasn’t around, Stephanie would spend hours talking on the phone while watching reality TV shows in which people competed to become models, singers, dancers, actors, train drivers, or anything other than what they really were, and she preferred to do so without the benefit of Samuel’s company.
It was now dark. Samuel should have been home fifteen minutes ago, but the house wasn’t the same anymore. He missed his dad, but he was also angry with him and his mum.
“We should be getting back,” he told Boswell. Boswell wagged his tail. It was getting chilly, and Boswell didn’t like the cold.
At which point there was a bright blue flash from somewhere behind them, accompanied by a smell like a fire in a rotten-egg factory. Boswell nearly fell off the wall in shock, saved only by Samuel’s arms.
“Right,” said Samuel, sensing an opportunity to delay returning home, “let’s go and see what that was …”
In the basement of 666 Crowley Road, a number of cloaked figures were covering their faces with their sleeves and spluttering.
“Oh, that’s disgusting,” said Mrs. Renfield. “How horrid!”
The smell really was terrible, particularly in such an enclosed space, even though Mr. Abernathy had earlier opened the basement window a crack to let some air in. Now he rushed to open it wider, and, slowly, the stench began to weaken, or perhaps it was just that there was now something else to distract the attention of the four people in the basement from it.
Hanging in the air at the very center of the room was a small, rotating circle of pale blue light. It twinkled, then grew in strength and size. Slowly, it became a perfect disk, about two feet in diameter, from which wisps of smoke were emerging.
It was Mrs. Abernathy who took the first step forward.
“Careful, dear,” said her husband.
“Oh, do be quiet,” said Mrs. Abernathy.
She kept advancing until she was mere inches from the circle. “I think I can see something,” she said. “Wait a minute.” She drew closer. “There’s … land there. It’s like a window. I can see mud, and stones, and the bars of some huge gates.
“And now there’s something moving—”
Outside, Samuel crouched by the small window, looking down on the basement. Boswell, who was a very intelligent dog, was hiding by the hedge. In fact Boswell was under the hedge, and had he been a larger dog, one capable of restraining an eleven-year-old boy, for example, Samuel would have been right there beside him; that, or both of them would have been well on their way home, where there were no nasty smells, no flashing blue lights, and no hints that something bad had just happened, and was likely to get considerably worse, Boswell also being a melancholic, even pessimistic, dog by nature.
The window was only a foot long, and opened barely two inches on its metal hinge, but the gap was wide enough for Samuel to be able to view and hear all that was going on inside. He was a little surprised to see the Abernathys and two other people wearing what looked like black bathrobes in a cold basement, but he had long ago learned not to be too shocked by anything adults did. He heard Mrs. Abernathy describe what she was seeing, but all that was visible to Samuel was the glowing circle itself. It seemed to be filled with a white fog, as if someone had blown a big, dense smoke ring in the Abernathys’ basement.
Samuel was very anxious to discover what else Mrs. Abernathy might have been able to glimpse. Unfortunately, those details were destined to remain unknown, apart from the fact that something on the other side had gray, scaly skin and three large, clawed fingers, for that was what reached out from the circle, grabbed Mrs. Abernathy’s head, and dragged her through. She didn’t even have time to scream.
Mrs. Renfield screamed instead. Mr. Abernathy ran toward the glowing circle, then seemed to think better of whatever he was planning to do and settled for calling out, plaintively, his wife’s name.
“Evelyn?” he said. “Are you all right?”
There was no response from the hole, but he could hear an unpleasant sound from within, like someone squishing ripe fruit. His wife had been correct, though: something was visible through the hole. It did indeed look like a pair of enormous gates, ones that had developed a small hole and were now bubbling with molten metal. Through it, Mr. Abernathy could see a dreadful landscape, all ruined trees and black mud. Shapes moved across it, shadowy figures that had no place except in horror stories and nightmares. Of his wife, there was no sign.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Mr. Renfield. He began bustling his wife toward the stairs, then stopped as a movement in the corner of the basement caught his eye.
“Eric,” he said.
Mr. Abernathy was too concerned with the whereabouts of his wife to pay any attention.
“Evelyn?” he called again. “Are you in there, dear?”
“Eric,” said Mr. Renfield again, this time with more force. “I think you may want to see this.”
Mr. Abernathy turned and saw what Mr. Renfield and his wife were looking at. As soon as he did so he decided that, all things considered, he might rather not have seen it, but by then, of course, it was too late.
There was a shape in the corner of the cellar, rimmed with blue light. It resembled a large, Mrs. Abernathy-shaped balloon, although one that was being filled with water and then jiggled by some unseen force so that it bulged in all the wrong places. In addition, its skin, visible only on its face and hands where they emerged from the now tattered and bloodied cloak, was gray and scaly, and the fingernails of each hand were yellow and hooked.
As they watched, the transformation was completed. A tentacle, its surface covered in sharp suckers that moved like mouths, coiled around the figure’s legs for a moment, and then was absorbed into the main body. The skin became white, the nails went from yellow to painted red, and something that was almost Mrs. Abernathy stood before them. Even Samuel, from where he watched, could see that she wasn’t the same. Mrs. Abernathy had been quite pretty for someone his mum’s age, but now she was more attractive than ever. She seemed to radiate beauty, as though a light had been turned on inside her body and was glowing through her skin. Her eyes were very bright, and some of that blue energy flickered in their depths, like lightning glimpsed in the blackest night.
She was also, Samuel realized, quite terrifying. Power, he thought. She’s full of power.
“Evelyn?” said Mr. Abernathy uncertainly.
The thing that looked like Mrs. Abernathy smiled.
“Evelyn is gone,” she said. Her voice was deeper than Samuel remembered, and made him shiver.
“Well, where is she?” demanded Mr. Abernathy.
The woman raised her right hand and pointed her finger at the glowing circle.
“In there, on the other side of the portal.”
“And what is ‘in there’?” said Mr. Abernathy. To his credit, he was being rather brave when faced with something that was clearly beyond his experience and, indeed, beyond this world.
“In there is … Hell,” said the woman.
“Hell?” said Mrs. Renfield, entering the conversation. “Are you sure? It doesn’t sound very likely.” She peered into the hole. “It looks a bit like that place on the moors where your mother lives, Reginald.”
&nbs
p; Mr. Renfield took a careful look. “You know, you’re right, it does a bit.”
“Bring Evelyn back,” said Mr. Abernathy, ignoring the Renfields.
“Your wife is gone. I will take her place.”
Mr. Abernathy regarded the thing in the corner.
“What do you want?” asked Mr. Abernathy, who was cleverer than Mr. and Mrs. Renfield, and all the little Renfields, had they been there, put together.
“To open the gates.”
“The gates?” said Mr. Abernathy in puzzlement, then the expression on his face changed. “The gates … of Hell?”
“Yes. We have four days to prepare the way.”
“Right,” said Mr. Renfield, “we’re off. Come along, Doris.” He took his wife’s arm and together they began ascending the steps from the basement. “Thanks for an, um, interesting night, Eric. We must do it again sometime.”
Mr. and Mrs. Renfield got as far as the third step when what looked like twin strands of spiderweb flew from the glowing blue hole, wrapped themselves round the waists of the unfortunate pair, then plucked them from the steps and dragged them through the portal. With a puff of foul-smelling smoke, they were gone. The portal grew larger for an instant before the blue rim seemed to disappear entirely.
“Where is it?” shouted Mr. Abernathy. “Where has it gone?”
“It’s still there,” said the woman. “But it’s better that it should remain hidden for now.”
Mr. Abernathy reached toward where the circle had been, and his hand vanished in midair. Quickly he pulled it back again, then held it up before his face. It was coated in a clear, sticky fluid.
“I want my wife back,” he said. “I want the Renfields back.” He reconsidered. “Actually, you can keep the Renfields. I never liked them anyway. I just want Evelyn back. Please.” Mr. Abernathy might not have been fond of his wife, but having her around was easier than being forced to look after himself.
The woman merely shook her head. There were twin flashes of blue behind her, and two large hairy things moved in the shadows of the basement. From where he crouched, Samuel glimpsed black eyes glittering—too many eyes for two people—and some bony, jointed limbs. While Samuel watched, the shapes gradually assumed the forms of Mr. and Mrs. Renfield, although they seemed to have a bit of trouble finding somewhere to store all their legs.
“I won’t help you,” said Mr. Abernathy. “You can’t make me.”
The woman laughed. “We don’t want your help,” she said. “We just want your body.”
With that a long pink tongue slithered from the portal, and Mr. Abernathy was yanked from his feet and disappeared into thin air. Moments later a fat blob, green and large eyed, assumed his shape and took its place beside what looked, to the casual observer, like Mrs. Abernathy and the Renfields.
By then, Samuel had seen enough, and he and Boswell were running as fast as they could for the safety of home. Had he waited, Samuel might have seen the creature that was now Mrs. Abernathy staring in the direction of the small window, and at the faint shape of a boy that hung in the still night air where Samuel had been hiding.
V
In Which We Meet Nurd, Who Is Not Quite As Terrifying As He Would Like to Be, but a Great Deal Unluckier
NURD, THE SCOURGE OF Five Deities, sat on his gilded throne, his servant Wormwood at his feet and his kingdom spread before him, and yawned.
“Bored, Your Scourgeness?” inquired Wormwood. “Actually,” said Nurd, “I am extremely excited. I cannot remember the last time I felt so enthused about anything.”
“Really?” asked Wormwood hopefully, and received a painful tap on the head from Nurd’s Scepter of Terrible and Awesome Might for his trouble.
“No, you idiot,” said Nurd. “Of course I’m bored. What else is there to be?”
It was an entirely understandable question, for Nurd was not in a happy place. In fact, the place in which Nurd happened to be was so far from Happy that even if one walked for a very long time—centuries, millennia—one still would not even be able to see Slightly Less Unhappy from wherever one ended up.
Nurd’s kingdom, the Wasteland, consisted of mile upon mile of flat, gray stone entirely unbroken by anything very pretty at all, apart from the odd rock that was marginally less gray, and some pools of viscous, bubbling black liquid. At the horizon, the rock met a slate gray sky across which lightning occasionally flashed without ever bringing the sound of thunder, or the feel of rain.
It wasn’t even a kingdom as such. Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities, had simply been banished to it for being, as his name had it, a Scourge, although the nature of Nurd’s offenses was open to some doubt.10
The title “Scourge of Five Deities,” which Nurd had come up with all by himself, was technically true: Nurd had been something of a bother to five different demonic entities, but they were relatively minor ones: Schwell, the Demon of Uncomfortable Shoes; Ick, the Demon of Unpleasant Things Discovered in Plug Holes During Cleaning; Graham, the Demon of Stale Biscuits and Crackers; Mavis, the Demon of Inappropriate Names for Men; and last, and quite possibly least, Erics’, the Demon of Bad Punctuation.
Nurd had been less of a scourge to these worthies and more of a minor irritation, like a fly buzzing against a window in summer or, well, like a stale biscuit that one had been quite looking forward to having with a nice cup of tea, but, thanks to the demon Graham, turns out to taste soggy and a bit dusty. Eventually, because he wouldn’t go away, and kept trying to muscle in on their operations, the five deities appealed to an aide to the Great Malevolence himself, which was how Nurd came to be occupying a not-very-interesting piece of nowhere-in-particular with not-very-much-to-do, but had decided to make the best of it by calling it his kingdom. To keep him company, his faithful servant Wormwood had been expelled along with him, an expulsion that Wormwood considered more than a bit unfair because he hadn’t done anything wrong at all, except to be careless in his choice of employer. The Great Malevolence was not entirely without mercy (or, indeed, a sense of humor), for he had seen fit to give Nurd a slightly used throne upon which to sit, and a cushion for Wormwood, as well as a box in which Nurd could keep various bits and pieces that had proved of no use whatsoever during his banishment. Thus it was that Nurd and Wormwood had been sitting in the middle of nowhere, if not for eternity, then since a few minutes past. They had never had very much to talk about. Now they had even less.
Wormwood rubbed his head, where a new bump had been added to the already impressive collection that adorned his misshapen skull, and, not for the first time, thought that Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities, really was a bit of a sod.
Nurd, heedless of Wormwood’s resentment, yawned once more, and promptly disappeared.
• • •
There wasn’t a name for the bundle of blue energy that had managed to escape from the Large Hadron Collider. It was part of that 96 percent of matter and energy unknown to science, and it wasn’t an intended result of the collider experiment at all. Rather, the great explosions in the collider had, very briefly, opened a portal, and on the other side of the portal the Great Malevolence had been waiting for precisely that moment. The little bundle of energy was the equivalent of a piece of wood that has been wedged beneath a door to keep it open. Now the challenge was to start putting pressure on the door in order to open it wider, because the Great Malevolence was immense. What Mrs. Abernathy had glimpsed, before she met her unfortunate end, were the gates of Hell, which had been put in place to keep the Great Malevolence within the boundaries of that awful place. The little piece of blue energy had created a small hole in those gates, large enough for some of the Great Malevolence’s agents to pass through. They were scouts, and guardians of the portal. They also represented the first step in the Great Malevolence’s plan to leave his own place of banishment, which wasn’t much better than that of Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities, but did at least have a view, and a few more chairs.
Unfortunately, as soon as anyone or anything starts sendin
g random bursts of energy whizzing through portals between dimensions without being sure of the consequences, there’s a good chance that some of that energy may end up in places that it shouldn’t, like the sparks from a welder’s torch as he works on a piece of metal. In an act of grave misfortune, one of those sparks had created a small fissure between our world and the space occupied by Nurd’s throne or, more particularly, Nurd himself.
The Great Malevolence had managed to wedge open a door, just as he had hoped.
He had also, unintentionally, managed to open a window.
Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities, was free.
Nurd was feeling dizzy, and somewhat sick, as though he had just climbed off a merry-go-round.11 He wasn’t sure what had happened, except that it had been most painful, but he knew that he was no longer occupying a throne in a dull, gray world accompanied only by a small demon who looked like a weasel with mange, which meant that this could only be a good thing. He felt air on his skin. (Nurd was vaguely human in appearance, although his ears were too long and pointed, and his head, shaped like a quarter moon, was too large for his body and bore a distinctly greenish tinge.) Although he was in darkness, his eyes were already beginning to make out the shapes of unfamiliar things.
“I’m… somewhere else,” said Nurd. Although he had never been anywhere other than the Wasteland and, briefly, until he’d irritated the Great Malevolence, certain far-flung regions of Hell itself, he understood instinctively where he was. He was in the Place of People, of Humans. He was a demon of great power let loose among those who, next to him, were powerless and insignificant. He began to channel all his rage and hurt and loneliness, creating from them an energy that he could use to rule this new world. His skin cracked and glowed red, like streams of lava glimpsed beneath the shifting rock of a volcanic eruption. The glow moved to his eyes, giving them a ferocity they had not had for a long, long time. Steam erupted from his ears, and he opened wide his jaws as he prepared to announce his presence on Earth to all those who would soon know his wrath.