The Gates (Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil #1)(52)

“Careful now, son, you’re getting worked up over . . .” He almost said “nothing,” then realized this might not be entirely helpful given Constable Peel’s current mood.

“ . . . over, um . . .”

Constable Peel folded his arms and waited, then said, “Over what, exactly, Sarge?”

“. . .over . . .”

“. . . over, let me see, a demon in the back of the car?” finished Constable Peel. “That about covers it, I think. Oh, and he says the world is coming to an end. That qualifies as ‘something’ too.”

“Well, there you have it, then,” said Sergeant Rowan. “We can’t just sit around doing nothing while the world is coming to an end.”

“So what are we going to do, Sarge?”

“We’re going to put a stop to it, Constable,” said Sergeant Rowan, with the kind of assurance that had kept the British empire running for a lot longer than it probably should have.

The sergeant walked over to the car and leaned in close to the window, where Nurd waited expectantly.

“Now look here, sir,” he began, “what’s all this stuff about the world coming to an end?”

“Well,” said Nurd, “I thought I was the only one who’d come through.”

“Through from where, sir?”

“From Hell.”

“The Hell.”

“That’s the one.”

“What’s it like, then?” asked Constable Peel, who had reluctantly joined them.

“Not very nice,” said Nurd. “You wouldn’t like it.”

“There’s a surprise,” said Sergeant Rowan. “What did you think he’d say, Constable? That it was pleasant on a sunny day? It’s not the beach at Eastbourne, you know.”

“I was just asking,” said Constable Peel.

“Anyway, back to the issue at hand,” said Sergeant Rowan. “So, you’ve come from Hell, and you thought you were alone, but you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And these, er, ‘ladies’ who may have attacked our police station, friends of yours, are they?”

“No, they came some other way.”

“How, exactly?”

“I don’t know how,” said Nurd. “Someone must have opened a portal, and now they’re spilling through.”

“This portal, sir? What would it look like?”

Nurd considered the question. “I think it would be sort of bluish,” he said, finally. “It probably started off quite small, but now it’s getting bigger and bigger. And when it gets big enough, then . . .”

“Then what?”

“Then he’ll come through. Our master. The Source of All Evil. The Great Malevolence, along with his army. And that’ll be that, really. Hell on Earth.”

“Do you think you could find this portal, sir?”

Nurd nodded. He thought that he could already sense it. He felt the presence of the blue energy; it made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. He knew that the closer he got to its source, the more he’d be aware of it. He was like a walking Evil Energy Detector. Now his hope was that, if he could get near enough, he might be able to sneak back to the Wasteland unobserved. Better yet, if Hell was empty because all the demons had moved here, he might find a way to leave the Wasteland altogether. He could go and live somewhere else, perhaps in a cozy cave with a nice view of some burning lakes.

“That’s decided then,” said Sergeant Rowan. “This gentleman will show us where the portal is, and we can set about stopping all this nonsense. Get on the radio, Constable. Make sure everything is fine back at the station, and then tell WPC Hay to alert the army. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

Constable Peel prepared to do as he was told. Before he could make the call, WPC Hay came on the radio herself.

“Base to Tango One, over.”

“This is Tango One,” said Constable Peel. “Is everything all right, Liz? Over.”

“Those flying women have gone, and we’ve got the doors locked, but now we’re getting calls left, right, and center. People’s houses are being attacked; there are monsters crawling and flying all over the place. And there’s some trouble over at the church. Over.”

“What kind of trouble? Over.”

“According to the verger, the dead have started to rise. Over.”

Constable Peel, who already looked unhappy, now looked very, very unhappy. He’d joined the police to stop bank robberies, and solve the odd murder, neither of which he had yet managed to do as Biddlecombe was rather quiet, and so far the combined total of bank robberies and murders in the town was precisely nil.25 Constable Peel had most certainly not joined the police to fight demons, not unless he was going to be paid overtime, and danger money, and given a great big gun.

He was about to ask another question, and possibly begin shouting at Sergeant Rowan to call out the air force, the U.S. Marines, the Swiss Guard, and perhaps the pope, vampire hunters, and anyone else who might be able to sort out dead people popping up from the ground, when a bolt of blue lightning shot across the radio. Seconds later the radio exploded in a shower of sparks and went dead. He looked up and saw that the telephone lines along the road were also glowing blue and sparking at their connections. He reached for his cell phone, but it too was dead.