The Gates (Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil #1)(15)

“Now eat your bacon,” said Samuel’s mum. “I’ve left it under the grill for you.”

She kissed him on the head again, then went upstairs.

Samuel ate his bacon. Sometimes he just didn’t understand adults. He wondered if he ever would, or if there would come a time, after he became a grown-up himself, when it all made sense to him.

He finished his food, fed the scraps to Boswell, then washed his plate and sat down at the table again. He patted Boswell thoughtfully. There was still the not-so-small matter of the opening of the gates of Hell to be dealt with, and his mum had been no help at all with that.

“Now what are we supposed to do?” asked Samuel.

If Boswell could have shrugged, he would have.

? ? ?

The doorbell rang at number 666. It was Mrs. Abernathy who answered. Standing before her was the postman, holding a large parcel. He wasn’t the usual postman, who was on holiday in Spain, and he had never seen Mrs. Abernathy before, but he thought she was very good looking.

“Parcel for Mr. Abernathy,” he said.

“That would be my”—Mrs. Abernathy, unused to talking to someone who wasn’t another demon, had to think for a moment—“husband,” she finished. “He’s not here at the moment.”

“No problem. You can sign for it.”

He handed Mrs. Abernathy a pen, and a form on a clipboard. Mrs. Abernathy looked confused.

“Just sign, er, there,” said the postman, pointing to a line at the bottom of the form.

“I don’t seem to have my glasses,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Would you mind stepping inside for a moment while I look for them?”

“It’s just a signature,” said the postman. “On a line. That line.” Once again, he pointed helpfully at the line in question.

“I don’t like signing anything that I haven’t read,” said Mrs. Abernathy.

It takes all sorts, thought the postman. “Right you are, then, ma’am. I’ll wait here while you look for your glasses.”

“Oh, please, come inside. I insist. It’s so cold out, and it may take me a moment or two to find them.” She moved farther into the house, still holding the clipboard. The clipboard was very important to the postman. It contained details of all of the parcels and registered letters that he had delivered that day, and he wasn’t supposed to let it out of his sight. Reluctantly he followed Mrs. Abernathy into the house. He noticed that the blinds and curtains were drawn in the rooms adjoining the hall, and there was a funny smell, like rotten eggs and recently struck matches.

“Bit dark in here,” he said.

“Really?” said Mrs. Abernathy. “I happen to like it this way.”

And the postman noticed, for the first time, that there seemed to be a blue glow to Mrs. Abernathy’s eyes.

The door closed behind him.

But Mrs. Abernathy was in front of him, so who could have closed it?

He was turning to find out when a tentacle curled itself round his neck and lifted him off the floor. The postman tried to say something, but the tentacle was very tight. He had a brief glimpse of a huge mouth, and some big teeth, and then everything went dark forever.

Humans were puny, thought Mrs. Abernathy. She had been sent to find out their strengths and weaknesses, but already she could tell that the latter far outweighed the former.

On the other hand, they didn’t taste bad at all.

Mrs. Abernathy licked her lips and went into the dining room, where the curtains were drawn. Three figures sat upon chairs, doing nothing in particular apart from smelling funny. Mr. Abernathy and the Renfields were starting to turn an ugly shade of purple, like meat that was going bad, and their fingernails had begun to drop off. That was the trouble with destroying the life force of another being, and taking on its shape. It was like opening a banana, throwing away the fruit, and then sewing up the skin in the hope that it would continue to look like a banana. It would, but only for a while, and then it would start turning black.

“I’m concerned about the boy,” said Mrs. Abernathy.

Her husband looked at her. His eyes were milky.

“Why?” he asked, his voice little more than a croak as his vocal cords began to decay. “He’s just a child.”

“He will talk.”

“Nobody will believe him.”

“Somebody might.”

“And if they do? We are more powerful than they can ever be.”

Mrs. Abernathy snorted in disgust. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?” she said. “The only powerful thing about you is your smell.”

She shook her head and walked away. That was the problem with lower demons: they had no cunning, and no imagination.

Mrs. Abernathy was of the highest order of demons, only a level below the Great Malevolence himself. She had knowledge of humans, for the Great Malevolence had spoken of them to her, and with him she had watched them from afar, as if through a dark window. What he saw fed his hatred and jealousy. He rejoiced when men and women did bad things, and howled with rage when they did good. He wanted to reduce their world to rubble and scarred earth, and destroy every living thing in it that walked, crawled, swam, or flew. It was Mrs. Abernathy who would pave the way for him. The Great Malevolence, and the humans’ machine with its beams and particles, would do the rest.

But there remained the problem of the boy. Children were dangerous, Mrs. Abernathy knew, more so than adults. They believed in things like right and wrong, good and evil. They were persistent. They interfered.