The Infernals aka Hell's Bells

XXXII

MRS. ABERNATHY’S BASILISK WAS chained to a post, its scaly skin covered in saliva, its eyes glazed with exhaustion. Mrs. Abernathy had ridden it hard and they had encountered a number of obstacles along the way, although Mrs. Abernathy had dealt with them admirably. Those obstacles had included five of Duke Abigor’s spies, whose heads now hung from the basilisk’s saddle, the heads still arguing among themselves about which of them was most to blame for their misfortune. Mrs. Abernathy paid them no heed. Her attention was focused on the boy who sat at the base of a large gilded cage not far from the door to Mrs. Abernathy’s small but perfectly formed palace.

Samuel watched her carefully through his glasses, one lens of which had cracked as he struggled vainly to escape the Watcher’s grip when it became clear that Mrs. Abernathy’s arrival was imminent. Now, face-to-face with the woman who hated him more than any other creature in the Multiverse, he found himself examining her closely in the hope that some weakness might reveal itself. To be honest, Mrs. Abernathy didn’t look at all well. Some of the stitches keeping her face together had come loose, exposing a little of the reality of the monstrous form beneath, and her skin was discolored, marked with patches of green like mold on bread. Her clothing was filthy and torn, her hair matted and disheveled. As she circled Samuel, she nibbled at one of her fingernails, and seemed surprised when it fell off.

“How are you, Samuel?” said Mrs. Abernathy at last.

“I could be better,” said Samuel. “After all, I’m in Hell. With you.”

“It’s your own fault. I warned you against meddling in my affairs back on Earth.”

“I didn’t have any choice but to meddle in them. You sent demons to kill me.”

“And very unsatisfactory they were too, given that they failed. It’s so hard to get good staff these days. That’s why I took it upon myself to drag you to Hell and, lo and behold, here you are. If I’d taken the time to kill you myself back in Biddlecombe, think of all the trouble I’d have avoided. Your home would be a place of ash and fire by now.”

“Well, sorry it didn’t work out for you,” said Samuel.

“Don’t be sarcastic, Samuel. It’s a very low form of wit. 39 You know, now that I have you, you seem so much less worthy of the pursuit. I’ve spent all this time raging against you, planning the horrors I would inflict upon you, and it made me forget that you’re really only a little boy, a little boy who got lucky for a while, and whose luck has now run out. Yet such trouble you’ve caused me, and so much distress and humiliation.”

“Is that why you’re falling apart?”

Mrs. Abernathy examined the index finger that had just lost its nail.

“Yes, in a way,” she said. “Cut off from my master, I am like a tree without sunlight, a flower without water, a kitten without milk, a-”

She stopped talking when she sensed that the examples she was using were hardly appropriate for an archdemon of Hell. Flowers? Kittens? She was sicker than she thought…

She stretched out a hand in the direction of the vast army of demons that had assembled, awaiting her command.

“You’re the cause of all this,” she said. “Armies are marching because of you. Demon stands against demon, duke against duke. I have ordered the annihilation of four legions in order to keep you safe. Hell has never seen such conflict, such turmoil. And all because of a little boy who couldn’t keep his nose out of the business of others, and a demon who believed that he could escape my wrath in a fast car.”

At this, Samuel could not hide his shock.

“Oh, that’s got your attention, hasn’t it?” said Mrs. Abernathy gloatingly. “You thought I didn’t know about your friend Nurd, the so-called Scourge of Five Deities?”

“He doesn’t call himself that any longer,” said Samuel. “It’s just Nurd. Unlike you, he doesn’t have any delusions of grandeur.” Samuel had heard his mother use that phrase about Mrs. Browburthy, who was the chairperson of practically every committee in Biddlecombe and ruled them all like a dictator. He was rather pleased that he’d found an opportunity to use it now.

“Delusions?” said Mrs. Abernathy. “No, I have no delusions. I was great once, and then I was humbled, but I will be great again, mark me, and you will be the gift that restores me to my rightful place. As for Nurd, I will hunt him down when I have handed you over to my master. He will be tortured, just as you will be, but the greatest torment that I can devise will be to ensure that you and he never set eyes on each other again. You will have eternity to miss him, and he you, assuming you can find time for such fine feelings amid your own sufferings.”

She leaned in close to the bars and whispered to Samuel: “And you can’t even begin to imagine what I’m going to do to your rotten little dog, but I’ll make sure that you can hear his howls of misery from wherever you are.”

Mrs. Abernathy turned her back on Samuel and walked to the edge of the cliff that overlooked her army. She raised her right hand, and opened her mouth.

“Heed me!” she cried. The Infernals assembled below grew silent, and gave her their attention. “We are close to the moment of our triumph. The boy, Samuel, who foiled our invasion of Earth, who ensured that we would continue to suffer in this place, is in my grasp. We will take him to our master, the Great Malevolence, and we will offer the boy to him like a juicy fly to a spider. Our Dark Lord will arise from his grief, and all who were loyal to me will be rewarded, and all those who took arms against me and, in doing so, betrayed our master will be punished forever.”

A great cheer rose from the ranks, and blades and claws and teeth flashed.

“But first our foes must be vanquished,” Mrs. Abernathy continued. “Already they gather before the entrance to the Mountain of Despair, intent upon instituting a new order in Hell, as if their ambitions can ever compare to the purity of our master’s evil. They are led by the traitor Abigor, and great will be his suffering when victory is achieved. Now look upon our prize!”

The Watcher ascended, and its claws grasped the ring at the top of the cage. The gilded prison rose into the air, and suddenly Samuel was sailing over the lines of demons, hundreds of thousands strong, all screaming their hatred at him as the cage flew barely inches above their heads, their spears and knives and sharp claws aimed at him as though hoping that they might save the Great Malevolence the trouble of ripping him apart. Samuel saw demons mounted on dragons and serpents, on toads and spiders and living fossils. He saw battle machines: catapults, and cannons, and great spiked wagons. He saw, amid the chaos of the lesser demons, the massed, ordered ranks of the legions, their loyalties distinguished by the banners of each duke, although those banners always flew lower than the standards depicting a horned figure set against a black background.

At last Samuel was lowered onto a flat wagon, where Mrs. Abernathy was already waiting for him. She ordered a black cloth to be placed over the cage, “a taste of the greater blackness to come,” and Samuel’s last sight as the cloth fell was of Mrs. Abernathy’s triumphant, grinning visage.

The Watcher resumed its perch above the gathering. It saw the legions take the head of a column that began to snake toward the Mountain of Despair, the untrained masses falling loosely into place behind the troops. A fresh mount had been found for Mrs. Abernathy, a massive hybrid of horse and serpent, its snake head snapping at its bridle, upon which she sat sidesaddle at the head of her army. She had even donned a new dress for the occasion, a little blue number with a lace collar. The wagon bearing the covered cage was surrounded by a phalanx of legionnaires who had been gifted to Mrs. Abernathy by the allied dukes, and now bore a new coat of arms: a lady’s handbag, decorated with a yellow daisy.

Curious, thought the Watcher. Appropriate, but… curious.