The Gates (Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil #1)(62)

“I drove a Porsche,” said Nurd. “I got the hang of that fairly quickly.”

Samuel was having second thoughts about letting Nurd have the car. Samuel’s dad would go crazy when he found out.

“You will look after it?” said Samuel to Nurd. “It’s such a beautiful car.”

“Samuel,” said Maria, “he’s going to drive it through a transdimensional portal and, if things go right, end up back in Hell, or, if things go wrong, in tiny little pieces scattered throughout a wormhole, or even compressed to almost nothing. It’s not entirely fair to ask him if he’s going to look after it.”

Samuel nodded. “Perhaps it’s better not to know.”

Samuel handed Nurd his father’s spare car keys. Nurd climbed into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition as Samuel raised the garage door that opened onto a lane at the rear of the house. Maria stood beside the open passenger-side window, and spoke to Nurd.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“Toward the big blue light,” said Nurd. “It won’t be hard to find.”

“No, I suppose not. You’ll need to build up quite a head of speed if this is to work.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” he said.

“Right. Good luck, then,” said Maria. “And, Nurd?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t let us down.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“Your dad is going to have a meltdown when he finds out, isn’t he?” said Maria to Samuel as he returned from opening the door.

“If Nurd fails, or if you’re wrong, my dad will have better things to worry about,” said Samuel.

“You’d think so,” said Maria, “but he’ll still find time to kill you.”

“I don’t care,” said Samuel. He was not frightened, but neither was he quite as angry as before. In a terrible way, he was getting his own back on his dad for leaving. If they weren’t quite even, they were getting there.

“Give us a few minutes, then get going,” said Samuel to Nurd. “We’ll distract those things at the gates, just in case they have come for you.”

Nurd gripped the steering wheel expectantly.

“I’ll count to one hundred,” he said.

“Great,” said Samuel. “Well, like Maria said, don’t let us down.”

He patted the car once more in farewell.

“Is your dad really going to be annoyed?” asked Nurd.

“He’ll get over it. After all, it’s for a good cause.”

“I hope he understands,” said Nurd. “You just seem . . . like the sort of person who should be understood.”

“I wish you could stay around,” said Samuel. “I’d like to have gotten to know you a little better.”

“You were the first person who was nice to me, ever,” said Nurd. “That counts for something, whatever happens.”

They shook hands, and then Samuel gave Nurd a hug that, after a moment of surprise, the demon returned. For the first time, Nurd began to understand how it was to feel sorrow at parting with a friend, and even as it hurt him he was grateful to Samuel for giving him the chance to experience something of what it was to be human.

“Come on,” said Maria. “Let’s go and help the others. That will keep your mind off things.”

“I expect so,” said Samuel. “Being eaten by a spider or a toad will do that . . .”

? ? ?

The demons had not moved. They were simply staring at the house, but it was the huge spider that most concerned Samuel, its mouthparts moving, dripping clear venom that turned the leaves black. Samuel’s brain was filled with shrieking voices telling him to run. He had always been frightened of spiders, ever since he was a very small child. He couldn’t explain why. Now he was being forced to confront a spider so vile that even in his worst nightmares he couldn’t have come up with anything like it, even if it did have a pair of human legs sticking somewhat incongruously out of its bottom.

Samuel opened the front door and stepped into the garden. From the back of the house, he heard the sound of the Aston Martin starting up.

A flickering figure, like a picture shown on a cinema screen, apppeared on the path before him, surrounded by blue light. It was Mrs. Abernathy, or a projection of herself.

“Hello, Samuel,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t be there in person to witness your death, but I’m sure my servants will make it as uncomfortable as possible.” Her head turned, as though she were listening to something, then she clicked her fingers and the toad demon, in response to her command, hopped away.

“Was that the sound of your little friends trying to escape?” sneered Mrs. Abernathy, and Samuel knew he had been right: Mrs. Abernathy had not been aware of Nurd’s presence.

Samuel shrugged.

“Well, they won’t get very far. Naroth will find them, and kill them. It will be a swift death, pleasant compared to what I have planned for you.”

Her ghostly hand touched the remaining spider demon, causing the hairs on its body to stand on end.

“Chelom,” she said. “Eat him. Slowly.”

? ? ?

Nurd was approaching the end of Poe Street when a large, dark shape appeared on the road before him, its body tensed to jump. Naroth’s face was not capable of showing feeling, but if it had been it would have displayed utter astonishment. Instead of the expected children, and the adult woman, there was a single figure behind the wheel of the car, its body draped with a blanket in which two eyeholes had been cut. Naroth’s senses detected something familiar about the figure, but it couldn’t decide what it was.