The Infernals aka Hell's Bells Read online

  And the Watcher regarded her, and knew that it had made the right choice.

  Mrs. Abernathy had been patient: one could not exist for so long without learning the value of patience. She had endured the rejection of the Great Malevolence, continuing to make her regular pilgrimage to his mountain when others laughed at her, reminding them all that she would not be forgotten. When she was not traipsing back and forth between her palace and her master’s home, she had been waiting. She had waited for her Watcher to find traces of the vehicle that had entered the portal and caused it to collapse, dragging them all back to Hell. She had waited for those moments when Samuel Johnson might inadvertently glance in a mirror and find her staring back at him, relishing his fear. She had waited for her chance to avenge herself upon him. But, most of all, she had waited for the humans to do what she knew they most assuredly would do.

  She had waited for them to turn on their great Collider once again.

  VIII

  In Which We Wonder Just How Smart Really Smart People Sometimes Are

  SCIENTISTS ARE A FUNNY lot. Oh, they do many great and wonderful things, and without science we wouldn’t have all kinds of useful stuff like cures for diseases, and lightbulbs, and nuclear missiles, and deadly germ warfare, and…

  Well, best not go there, perhaps. Let’s just say that science has, in general, been very beneficial to humanity, and many scientists have exhibited considerable bravery in the course of their work, although occasionally the more sensible among us might, if given the opportunity to witness some of their experiments, think to ourselves, “Ooh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” 19 which is why we’re not scientists and will never discover anything very interesting, although neither will we accidentally poison ourselves by ingesting the contents of a thermometer.

  And so, deep in a tunnel near Geneva in Switzerland, a group of scientists was looking a bit anxiously at a switch, while around them the Large Hadron Collider, once again, went about its very important business. The Collider, for those of you who don’t know, was the largest particle accelerator ever built, designed to smash together beams of subatomic protons at enormous speeds-99.9999991 percent of the speed of light-and thereby make all kinds of discoveries about the nature of the universe by re-creating the conditions that occurred less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang that created it about 13.7 billion years ago. Unfortunately, when last turned on, the Collider’s energy had been harnessed by Mrs. Abernathy in order to open a portal between our world and Hell, which was when all of the trouble had started. Since then the Collider had remained resolutely switched off, and the scientists had done a great deal of work to ensure that the whole portal to Hell business would never, ever happen again. Promise. Pinkie promise. Pinkie promise with sugar on top. 20

  “Is anything happening?” said Professor Stefan, CERN’s head of particle physics. He sounded both nervous and impatient. Professor Stefan had been present when all that nasty demonic business had happened, and a lot of people had pointed the finger of blame at him, which he felt was a bit unfair as he hadn’t known that the gates of Hell were going to open because of his nice, shiny particle accelerator. If he had known-

  Oh dear, that was the thing of it. If he had known, he probably would still have allowed the Collider to be switched on. They’d gone to all that trouble to build it, and had spent all that money: $7 billion, at the last count. They couldn’t very well just lock the door, put the key under the mat, leave a note for the milkman canceling their order, and go back to doing whatever it was they had been doing before the Collider was suggested. That would just be silly. And there would have been no guarantee that the gates of Hell would open anyway, because nobody was sure if Hell even existed. It would be like saying, “Don’t turn that thing on. The Easter Bunny might pop out!,” or, “A fairy’s wings might drop off!,” or, “A unicorn might fall over!” That wouldn’t be science. That would be nonsense.

  On the other hand, the scientists now knew that (a) Hell, or something similar to it, did exist; (b) it was full of creatures that didn’t like them very much, although it wasn’t just scientists they didn’t like but everything that existed on Earth; and (c) somehow the Collider had provided these creatures with a way of poking their heads into our world and eating people. The general consensus among those who knew about CERN’s involvement in the near catastrophe, and who didn’t particularly want to be eaten by demons-thanks very much, ever thought of trying a salad?-was that it probably wouldn’t be a very good idea to go turning the Collider on again. The scientists argued that they’d figured out what the problem was (kind of), and they were certain (sort of) that nothing like what had happened before would ever happen again (or probably would never happen again, within a given margin of error. What margin of error? Oh, tiny. Hardly worth bothering about. What, you want to see the piece of paper on which I’ve made that calculation? What piece of paper? Oh, this piece of paper. Well you can’t because-munch, munch-I’ve just eaten it. So there).

  Eventually they decided that it might just be okay to turn on the Collider again, but the scientists had to be very careful, and if it looked like something bad involving creatures with claws and fangs and bad attitude was about to occur, they were to turn off the Collider immediately and go and inform a responsible adult. The scientists were reasonably confident that this would not be necessary, as they had worked hard on what was thought to have been a source of potential weakness. The joints holding the machine’s copper stabilizers were discovered not to be strong enough to withstand the forces being unleashed against them-five hundred tons per square meter, or the equivalent of five jumbo jets at full throttle being pushed against each square meter-but now the stabilizers had been reinforced, and all was believed to be well.

  But the changes and corrections that the scientists had made to the Collider had also enabled them to increase its energy levels. The energies involved in its collisions were measured in tera electron volts, or TeV, with each TeV being equivalent to a million million electron volts. When the first “incident” had taken place, the Collider was sending twin beams of 1.18 TeV each around its ring, giving collision energies of 2.36 TeV. The new, improved Collider was set to more than double the collision energy to 7 TeV, the first big step toward its routine capacity of 14 TeV.

  Which was how the scientists came to be standing around looking at the switch with fingers crossed and lucky rabbits’ feet in hand while Professor Stefan inquired if anything had happened yet, and Professor Hilbert, his assistant, who was very curious about all of the Hell and demons stuff because it proved his theory that there were universes out there other than our own, sucked his pencil and wondered if he should confess that he was rather hoping the portal might open again nearby as he’d missed it last time.

  “Nothing unusual,” said Professor Hilbert, trying not to sound disappointed.

  Professor Stefan let out a deep breath of relief. “Thank goodness,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine from now on.”

  The other scientists glared at him, because that’s just the kind of thing that people say before the roof collapses, the floor cracks, and everything goes to Hell in a handcart, in this case potentially quite literally, assuming someone had remembered to bring along a handcart, but Professor Stefan didn’t notice. Neither did he pay any attention to the fact that Professor Hilbert had sidled away, and had disappeared into a small room marked “Broom Closet-Janitor’s Use Only.”

  “See,” said Professor Stefan, who just didn’t know when to stop tempting fate, “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

  The broom closet that Professor Hilbert had entered was no longer really for brooms. Instead, an array of monitoring equipment had been set up, and two technicians were staring intently at a pair of screens. Between the screens was a speaker, currently silent.

  “And?” said Professor Hilbert.

  “It all seems to be working as it should,” said the first technician, whose name was Ed. He was stari
ng at an image that resembled a spider encased in a wire tube dotted with bits of brick.

  “I agree,” said his companion, Victor. Behind them was an unfinished game of Battleship, which Professor Hilbert pretended not to notice. “There is a marginal energy loss, but that could be a joint again. Anyway, it will be contained within the vacuum.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, but it must be. I mean, where else could it go? We’ve examined every inch of the Collider. Its integrity is now beyond doubt.”

  “Really?” said Professor Hilbert. “I seem to remember that’s what was said last time.”

  “Well, we were wrong then,” said Ed, with the certainty of someone who is convinced he knows where his opponent is hiding a submarine and an aircraft carrier, if only he might be allowed to return to the game. “But we’re right now.”

  He smiled amiably. Professor Hilbert did not smile back.

  “Keep an eye on it,” said Professor Hilbert as he made for the door. “And if I catch you playing Battleship again, you’ll wish you really were on a sinking aircraft carrier…”

  Mrs. Abernathy slumped to her knees. The beams of blue light withdrew into her body, but her eyes retained a blue glow. It had been there ever since the collapse of the portal, but now it was more intense. She trembled for a moment, then was still. Slowly, a smile spread across her face.

  The Watcher had not moved. At last it understood. Yes, Mrs. Abernathy had been changed by her time in the world of men, and she had brought back aspects of it with her to Hell: curtains, and vases, and doormats; print dresses, and blond hair, and painted nails.

  But it was also she who had first recognized the importance of the Collider experiment. The primal forces involved in the creation of the universe were also present in the most ancient of demons. The re-creation of those forces on Earth had formed a connection between universes that she and the Great Malevolence could exploit. The collapse of the portal, and the consequent failure of their invasion, seemed to have severed that connection forever, but now that appeared not to be so. The connection between worlds remained, but only through her. She had been the first one through the portal, and had held it open initially through sheer force of will. Some small part of the Collider’s energy was still being accessed by her. She had to draw upon it slowly and carefully so as not to alert those responsible for the Collider, for she did not want them to shut it down. It would not be enough to stage another invasion, but in time it might be. It was not even enough to enable her to cross over from her world to theirs, for a powerful old demon like herself would require enormous energy to move between universes. But it would be sufficient to pull a human being from their world into hers, and she knew just the human being she wanted. She would drag Samuel Johnson to Hell and present him to her master as a prize. Then she would reveal the secret of the blue light to him and he would love her again.

  As she rose to her feet, the Watcher began to speak. It told her of strange tracks in the dirt, of a black substance on rocks, of the smell of fumes and burning in the air. When it was finished she touched its head with her hand, and it bowed low with gratitude.

  “All good things come to those who wait,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “All good things…”

  She began to laugh, a terrible sound. It echoed around the chamber, carried across the plains, and was heard by the demons who had abandoned her. Some fled, fearing her vengeance for their betrayal, but others prepared to return to her, for if Mrs. Abernathy was laughing then circumstances had changed, and they might yet profit from it. Foul beings emerged from holes in the ground and caves in black mountains, from pits of ash and pools of fire. They crawled, wobbled, and slimed their way from their hiding places, and slowly began to make their way back to her.

  The most diabolical creatures of that realm, the Infernals, were answering her call.

  IX

  In Which Mr. Merryweather’s Elves Embark on a New Adventure

  MR. MERRYWEATHER’S ELVES WERE making good time on the motorway. There had been some initial problems with driving the van, since the only one of them who had a license was Jolly, and his legs were even shorter than those of his fellow dwarfs and therefore had no chance at all of reaching the brake or the accelerator. This problem was solved by gluing a bottle of Spiggit’s Old Peculiar to each of the van’s pedals with extra-strong adhesive, so Jolly simply had to step on a bottle cap to speed up or slow down.

  The dwarfs had been feeling somewhat glum since Mr. Merryweather had stomped off down the road, muttering and waving his fists, and vowing never again to work with anyone who couldn’t look him in the eye without standing on a chair. Say what you wanted to about Mr. Merryweather-and the dwarfs had said virtually everything about him that they could, including a number of insults that would be unprintable in a guide to swearing for sweary sailors-he had at least found them work, and he had stood by them following various incidents of assault, arson, and on one occasion, conspiracy to overthrow an elected government. Without him they were going to struggle to find jobs, and avoid arrest.

  Mumbles and Dozy stared mournfully into their glasses of Spiggit’s. Even though the van’s suspension was suspect and made drinking from a glass difficult, it was generally considered unwise to drink Spiggit’s directly from the bottle. 21 In the first place, it was uncivilized, as ale always tasted better from a glass. In the second place, Spiggit’s tended to have an odd, cloudy residue that lurked at the bottom of every bottle, rather like one of those strange creatures that live in deep trenches on the seabed, waiting to snap at the unwary. Jolly had once drunk some of that residue as an experiment. 22 The immediate effect was to cause him to seek the comfort of a toilet for so long that it was suggested he might like to take out a mortgage on it. Three months later, as he told anyone who would listen, his insides still weren’t right, for somewhere in his digestive organs Spiggit’s Old Peculiar continued to ferment away merrily, as the beer had the kind of long life more usually associated with lethal radiation. He was still prone to attacks of temporary blindness, an occasional inability to remember his own name, and explosive burping, which had led to one of the incidents of alleged arson after he belched a little too close to a naked flame.

  So Mumbles, Angry, and Dozy held on tightly to their glasses of ale (particularly since Spiggit’s, if spilled on skin or clothing and allowed to remain there for more than five seconds, tended to burn) and wondered how they were going to be able to afford to eat, or drink, without Mr. Merryweather to help them. There was a certain urgency to this, as they had only twelve cases of Spiggit’s left in the back of the van, along with two boxes of potato chips and a couple of sandwiches that appeared to be on the turn. It had been suggested that they dump the two boxes of chips in order to make room for more beer, but wiser counsel had prevailed, and they had dumped just one of the boxes of chips, and kept the sandwiches.

  “That’s the end of us,” said Angry. “I’ll have to go back to my old job.”

  “What was that?” said Dozy.

  “Not having a job.”

  “Take up much time, did it?”

  “All day. I had weekends off, though.”

  “Well, you would. You’d exhaust yourself otherwise.”

  “What about you?”

  Dozy shuddered. “Doesn’t bear thinking about. Children’s television.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Remember that show Beefy and the Noodles?”

  “The one set in the bowl of soup?”

  “That’s the one. I was Percy Pea.”

  “Don’t remember you saying much.”

  “I was a pea. Peas are among your quieter vegetables on account of there not being much air in those pods. You can’t get a carrot to shut up, and don’t get me started on broccoli. I hated being a pea. And the suit smelled funny. The previous Percy Pea died in it.”

  “Really?”

  “Contracted something from the soup. We spent hours in that soup. It was horrible. Anyway, he caught a disease from
the soup, and he died, but they didn’t find out until after the weekend. They thought the suit was empty, so they just pushed him back into his pod and left him there. That suit never smelled the same after.”

  “It wouldn’t, would it?” said Angry. “You can’t leave a dead person in a pea suit for a weekend and not expect it to smell a bit. Stands to reason. A day, maybe: you can get rid of a day’s dead smell, but not a weekend’s. What about you, Mumbles, what did you do?”

  “Vovos,” said Mumbles.

  “Oh,” said Angry.

  “Missed that,” said Dozy.

  “He says he did voice-overs,” said Angry, who tried to hide his confusion by looking more confused. “You know, for commercials, and movie trailers, and the like.”

  There was a pause while the dwarfs took this in.

  “Nice work if you can get it,” said Dozy, eventually.

  “Have to have a talent for it,” said Angry, who had developed an extra wrinkle in his forehead as he tried to figure out the precise trajectory of Mumbles’s career path.

  “Anglebog,” agreed Mumbles.

  “Indeed,” replied Angry, neutrally. “Good pronunciation would be the key.”

  “What about you, Jolly?” said Dozy. “What will you do?”

  “Do?” said Jolly. “Do? Listen to you lot. We’re not finished yet. We’ve been through worse times than this. We’ve been arrested, deported, and almost sold into slavery. You have to be optimistic. I guarantee that opportunity lies around the next bend.”

  He was so convincing that they raised their glasses and cheered.

  Opportunity did not, in fact, lie around the next bend. What did was an unmarked police car, in which Constable Peel and Sergeant Rowan of the Biddlecombe constabulary were checking the speeds of cars and drinking tea from a thermos.