The Infernals aka Hell's Bells

XXV

THERE WERE A GREAT many things that Wormwood had never expected to see in the course of his existence-a tree that didn’t want to tear him apart, for example, or a demon that just fancied a bit of a chat and a warm hug instead of inflicting misery and hurt and generally making a nuisance of itself-but high on that list, perhaps higher even than Someplace Other Than Hell, was Nurd showing a genuine, positive emotion. But as he watched Nurd and Samuel hug, and heard them begin to chatter at high speed about all that had happened since last they had met, and saw a big, sloppy tear drop from one of Nurd’s eyes, slide down his face, and perform a little jump into the air from the end of his chin, Wormwood thought that if such a thing as Nurd weeping for joy was possible, then anything might be.

“Got something in my eye,” said Jolly as the friends enjoyed their reunion. He gave a little sniff.

“Very moving,” said Angry, dabbing at his nose with a sleeve that had clearly been used for that same purpose a great many times in the past, and consequently resembled a racetrack for snails.

“Seeing people happy always makes me want an ice cream,” said Dozy. “Seriously.”

“Arfle,” said Mumbles, in what might have been agreement.

They looked hopefully at Dan, Dan the Ice-Cream Man, who brandished an empty cone at them.

“There isn’t any more ice cream,” said Dan. “You’ve eaten it all. I didn’t think it was possible, but you have. You’re monsters, all of you.”

“Oh well,” said Dozy, “I’ll just have to be happy without one, then, but it won’t be the same.”

He returned to watching Nurd and Samuel.

“Come along, you lot,” said Sergeant Rowan gently. “Let’s not make it a spectator sport.”

Somewhat reluctantly, because they were sentimental little men despite themselves, the dwarfs turned away.

Samuel and Nurd walked a short distance, Boswell trotting along happily beside them. They sat on a flat stone while each considered what the other had just told him.

“So you’ve been hiding away all this time?” said Samuel.

“Well, running and hiding,” said Nurd. “You see, I’m not sure that Mrs. Abernathy knows I was the one who collapsed the portal. She knows about the car, of course, but not about me, so Wormwood came up with the idea of disguising it as a rock.”

Samuel looked at the disguised Aston Martin; the rock exterior-actually a sheet of thin metal beaten and painted to resemble stone-was held in place by struts that sat upon the body of the car, with gauze replacing metal in front of the windows so that the driver had a clear view to the front, the sides, and behind him. There was actually a kind of brilliance to the idea, as long as nobody saw it moving. Then again, thought Samuel, this was Hell, and moving rocks might well exist somewhere in its depths, presumbly with teeth to help them munch on smaller rocks that couldn’t defend themselves.

“But how did you find me?” asked Samuel. “I mean, Hell is a big place, isn’t it?”

“I’ve heard it said that it’s infinite, or if it isn’t it’s as close to infinite as to make no difference. If it isn’t infinite, then nobody has been able to find the end yet. 35 And if you include the Void, well…”

Samuel shuddered at the thought of how he had almost lost himself in that blackness. He could still feel a coldness deep inside him, and he wasn’t sure if that element of himself touched by the Void would ever fully recover.

“Anyway,” continued Nurd, “I sensed you as soon as you arrived. There’s always been a part of me that’s stayed connected to you. I don’t know how, or why, but I’m grateful for it.”

“You used to turn up in my dreams sometimes,” said Samuel. “We’d have conversations.”

“And you in mine,” said Nurd. “I wonder if we were talking about the same things.”

But before they could continue, an anxious-looking Wormwood approached, with Constable Peel close behind. Wormwood was about to say something, but Nurd stopped him with a raised hand.

“Samuel, I’d like to introduce you properly to someone. Samuel Johnson, this is my, well, this is my friend and colleague, Wormwood.”

And Wormwood, who had been called a lot of names by Nurd in his time, but never “friend,” stopped short as though he’d walked into an invisible wall. He blushed, then beamed.

“Hello, Wormwood,” said Samuel. “It’s good to meet you at last.”

“And you, Mr. Samuel.”

“Just ‘Samuel.’ I’m sorry if I was a bit quiet in the car. I wasn’t quite myself then.”

“No apologies necessary,” said Wormwood.

Samuel extended his hand and Wormwood shook it, noticing that, when Samuel took his hand away, he didn’t try to wipe it on his trousers, or on the ground, or on someone else. It really was a day of firsts for Wormwood.

A cough from Constable Peel, followed by a finger pointed at the sky, brought Wormwood back to reality with a vengeance.

“Oh yes. We need to get moving,” said Wormwood. “Constable Peel has seen things circling below the clouds. We’re being watched.”

They all looked up. The clouds had grown darker and heavier in the time that Samuel had been staring into nothingness, the thunder louder, and the lightning brighter.

“There’s a storm coming anyway,” said Nurd. “We have to get under cover.”

As they looked up, a winged figure broke through the clouds and hovered for a moment. To Samuel it looked at first like a bird with an elongated body, but then it dropped lower and he could pick out its forked tail, its bat wings, and the horns on its head. He thought that he could feel its interest in them before it twisted in the air and shot back into the clouds again.

“There,” said Constable Peel. “Last time there were two of them.”

Nurd frowned. If Constable Peel was correct, it meant that one was keeping a close watch on them while the other went off and informed of their presence. The question was: who was being informed?

Within sight of where they stood was a range of red-hued hills, the same hills that Samuel and Boswell had been making for when they encountered the Void. The hills were separated from them by what appeared to be marshland, over which hung a particularly noxious mist. Nurd knew that the hills were pitted with holes and caves. In any other part of Hell, they would probably have been turned into lairs for unspeakable creatures, but even the residents of Hell preferred to keep their distance from the Void, which was still visible from the higher points of the range.

“We can find a place to hide over there,” said Nurd. “After that, we can try to plan our next move.”

They all piled into their respective vehicles, and Nurd led them in the direction of the hills, carefully treading a path through the stinking marshes. He was forced to roll down the windows so that he could peer out and check their progress, which made the car smell awful. Samuel saw an eyeball protrude from the swamp, held up by a hand.

“What is it, Gertrude?” Samuel heard a voice say.

“Nigel, I do believe that there’s an oik driving two other oiks and a small thingy through our garden.”

A second eyeball popped out of the water.

“I say, you chaps, bit of a cheek, what?”

“Sorry,” said Samuel. “We didn’t know it was your garden. We’ll try not to make a mess of it.”

“It’s a swamp,” hissed Nurd. “If we did make a mess of it, it could only be an improvement.”

“Heard that!” said Nigel. Another hand emerged from the swamp and made itself into a fist, which it shook in the direction of Nurd’s car. “I’ll give you what-for, and no mistake. Taking liberties with another chap’s property, insulting his gardening skills. I mean, what’s Hell coming to, Gertrude? I’ll get me sticks.” Both hands duly disappeared beneath the swamp.

“Quite right, Nigel,” said Gertrude just as the ice-cream van emerged from the mist. “Look! There’s another one. I say, it’s full of little fellows. How sweet!”

The dwarfs crowded to the serving hatch of the van, joined by Constable Peel.

“You don’t see one of those every day,” said Jolly.

“No,” said Angry. “You usually see two of them. Oi, darling, keeping an eye on us, are you? See what I did there, eh: keeping ‘an eye’?”

“Mind you don’t drop it, love,” said Dozy. “You won’t have anything to look for it with.”

Gertrude, wisely, began to reconsider her opinion of the dwarfs. “What dreadful little men,” she said just as her husband’s eyeball appeared beside her, and various hands brandishing sticks, clubs, and, oddly, a stick of rhubarb.

“Come away from them, dear,” said Nigel. “They’re common, vulgar types. You never know what you might catch.”

“Common?” said Angry. “We may be common, but we’ve earned the right to be unpleasant.”

“Sweat of our brows,” said Jolly. “You’ve just inherited rudeness. We’ve had to work at it.”

“You’re peasants!” shouted Nigel. “Vandals! Get off my land!”

“Nyah!” shouted Angry, sticking his tongue out and wiggling his hands behind his ears in that timeless gesture of disrespect beloved in school yards everywhere. “Get a proper job!”

They emerged onto firmer ground, leaving the swamp behind. The dwarfs looked very pleased with themselves, and even Constable Peel and Sergeant Rowan seemed to have enjoyed the exchange.

“I love a good shout,” said Jolly.

“We should visit them on the way back,” said Dozy. “I liked them. Eh, Jolly?”

But Jolly wasn’t listening. Instead, he was sniffing the air.

“Can you smell that?” he said.

“It’s the swamp,” said Angry.

“No, it’s different.”

“That was me,” said Dozy. “It’s all the ice cream. Sorry.”

“No, not that,” said Jolly. “That.”

They all sniffed.

“Nah,” said Angry, “it can’t be.”

“We’re dreaming,” said Dozy.

“It’s-” said Jolly, so overcome with emotion that he could barely speak. “It’s-”

“It’s a brewery,” said Mumbles.

Everybody in the van looked at him, even Dan, who could barely see at the best of times.

“You spoke clearly,” said Jolly.

“I know,” said Mumbles. “But this is important.”

And, to be fair, it was.