The Gates (Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil #1)(10)

Unfortunately, as soon as anyone or anything starts sending 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.

“I am Nurd!” he cried. “You will bow down before me!”

Light appeared. It was disturbingly regular, forming a huge rectangle, the outline of a door larger than Nurd had ever seen, even in the depths of Hell itself. Then the door opened, flooding Nurd’s new world with illumination. A giant being towered above him, a colossus in a pink skirt and white blouse. It had something in its hands, a squat, eyeless creature with a long nose and square jaws.

“Oh, for cry—,” began Nurd, all he got to say before Mrs. Johnson’s vacuum cleaner dropped on him, and everything went dark again.

? ? ?

Back in the Wasteland, Wormwood was still trying to work out what, precisely, had happened to his unloved master. He poked the space on the throne that Nurd usually occupied, wondering if Nurd had been hiding the art of invisibility for all this time, and had only now decided to use it in order to break the monotony, but there was nothing there.

Nurd, it appeared, was gone.

And if Nurd was gone, then he, Wormwood, was now ruler of all he surveyed.

Wormwood picked up the Scepter of Terrible and Awesome Might from the foot of the throne. With his other hand, he grasped the Crown of Misdeeds, which had fallen from Nurd’s head as he slipped out of existence. He stared at them both, then faced the Wasteland and raised the scepter and the crown above his head.

“I am Wormwood!” he cried. “I am—”

There was a sound behind him, as though a Nurd-shaped object were being forced through a decidedly small hole, and wasn’t feeling terribly happy about the process.

“—very happy to see you again, Master,” concluded Wormwood, as he turned and saw Nurd, seated, once again, on his throne, and looking like an enormous Thing of Some Kind had fallen on him. He seemed bewildered, and somewhat broken in places.

“Wormwood,” said Nurd. “I feel ill.”

And he sneezed a single, dusty sneeze.





VI

In Which We Encounter Stephanie, Who Is Not a Demon but Is Still Not Terribly Nice

THE FRONT DOOR OPENED while Samuel was fumbling for his key. He had only recently been entrusted with his own house key, and he was so terrified of losing it that he kept it around his neck on a piece of string. Unfortunately it was proving rather difficult to find it while dressed as a ghost and holding on to a small, worried dog, so he was still searching beneath various layers of sheet, sweater, and shirt when Stephanie the babysitter appeared in his line of sight.

“Where have you been?” she said. “You should have been back half an hour ago.” The expression on her face changed. “And why are you dressed like a ghost?”

Samuel shuffled past her, but didn’t answer immediately. First of all, he set Boswell free of his leash, and divested himself of his sheet.

“I thought I’d get an early start for Halloween,” he said, gasping, “but that doesn’t matter now. I’ve seen something—”

“Forget it,” said Stephanie.

“But—”

“Not interested.”

“It’s important.”

“Go to bed.”

“What?” Samuel was momentarily distracted from what he had witnessed in the Abernathys’ basement by the injustice of this magnitude. “It’s half term. I don’t have to go to school tomorrow. Mum said—”