“It was a long shot,” agreed Angry. “It would be like telling us that it’s better to pay for stuff than to get it for nothing by stealing it. I mean, it might be true, but you’re not going to get anywhere by believing it.”
“You know,” said the Polite Monster to Mrs. Abernathy, shaking with the kind of suppressed rage of which only the nicest people are capable, “you really are a very, very rude—four letters, ‘ill-mannered or impolite’— demon.”
Mrs. Abernathy roared, and foul-smelling spittle shot from her jaws.
“Enough!” she said. “It begins.”
The stones from the collapsed grotto ascended slowly into the air, revealing the dusty remains of Hilary Mould, but also a very old, very battered wooden door. It hung suspended just a foot off the ground, and at its center was a single lock.
“This is the last barrier, the doorway between the Kingdom of Shadows and this world,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “It needs only the key to open it.”
Her gaze flicked dangerously from one face to the next, until it came to rest on Maria.
“You,” she said. “I feel Samuel’s fondness for you. You will provide the key.”
As she spoke, two of the tentacles on her back lashed out, wrapping themselves around Maria and lifting her off the ground.
“You are the key,” said Mrs. Abernathy, “and the key is blood.”
The surface of the door rippled. Great splinters protruded from the ancient wood, each capable of spearing a human being like an insect on a pin. The keyhole changed shape, becoming a red-lipped mouth waiting to be fed. The last of the stars disappeared from above their heads as the Shadows merged into a single mass of blackness, a great face composed of many entities in one, and galaxies were swallowed in its jaws.
The dwarfs rushed at Mrs. Abernathy, and she struck back with her tentacles and her long, spindly arms, each ending in claws of spurred bone. Nurd and Wormwood went for her legs, trying vainly to overbalance her and pull her down. The policemen joined in the attack, supported by Dan and the Polite Monster. Even Lucy came out of her sulk and joined the fray. They hit her with truncheons and fists, with cricket bats and tennis rackets, but the demon was too strong for them. All they managed to do was distract Mrs. Abernathy, but at least they were preventing her from drawing closer to the door, and impaling Maria on its waiting spikes.
Samuel’s voice sounded loudly, even amid the chaos.
“Everybody get back!” he cried.
Without thinking, the attackers did as he commanded, creating space around Mrs. Abernathy.
“You put my girlfriend down!” said Samuel.
A single black object soared through the air toward Mrs. Abernathy, its cork already popping as its contents struggled to escape. The newly-arrived Shan and Gath watched it go with great sorrow.
The dwarfs saw it, too.
“Is that—?” said Angry, diving for cover.
“It can’t be,” said Jolly, already trying to hide behind Sergeant Rowan.
“I thought it was just a myth,” said Dozy, who had decided that, if someone had to go, it might as well be the Polite Monster, as he would probably be too polite to object, and so had chosen to use him for cover.
“Spiggit’s Old Resentful,” said Mumbles, and there was awe in his voice, as well as fear for his safety, for he seemed to be left with nowhere to hide at all. As a last resort, he curled himself into a small ball and prayed.
The bottle struck Mrs. Abernathy in the chest and exploded into shards. The yeasty weapon of war sprayed her skin and immediately went to work on it like acid, burning through the shield that surrounded her heart. Mrs. Abernathy screamed in pain and dropped Maria. Her tentacles and arms instinctively went for the growing wound as she tried to wipe the fluid from her skin. Instead it simply spread to her other limbs and began to scald them as well. Her screaming grew in pitch and volume, and then turned to a sound so agonized as to be barely audible, for the first of the Spiggit’s had found her heart.
Just then, there was a wet popping sound from inside Mrs. Abernathy, and her heart moved. It seemed to be forcing itself out of her damaged body, as though trying to escape its fate. At last it was entirely outside her, and it was only when a small gelatinous mass appeared behind it, black gore running down his sides, that the truth of what was happening was revealed.
Mrs. Abernathy gurgled. She reached for her heart, but Crudford was too quick for her. He oozed out of reach as Mrs. Abernathy’s body, weakened by the trauma of her injury, collapsed. The life left her eyes. Just like Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley, her human form had merely been a vessel for an essence of evil. Her foul heart continued to beat in Crudford’s arms, for that was where all of her true power resided.
The wooden door collapsed in upon itself. The face of the Shadows opened its mouth in a soundless cry of frustration and rage, and then was gone. The divisions between the dimensions of the Multiverse were slowly concealed, falling upon one another like clear sheets of plastic dotted with stars until at last there was only one familiar set of constellations in the sky, and then even that was gone as the floors and ceilings and walls of Wreckit & Sons became visible once more. Samuel and the others were left standing beside the ruins of the grotto, and there was silence but for the beating of Mrs. Abernathy’s heart.
“Don’t go anywhere,” said Crudford. “I won’t be a—”
And then he, and the heart, vanished.
XXXVII
In Which Mrs. Abernathy Finally Gets Her Just Deserts
A GREAT HOST HAD GATHERED by the shores of Lake Cocytus, in the chilliest, bleakest region of Hell. Jagged peaks towered above the lake, casting their shadows across its frozen surface. Nothing dwelt among their crevasses and caves: even the hardiest of demons shunned Cocytus. A bitter, howling wind blew ceaselessly across the lake’s white plain, the only barriers to its progress being the bodies of those not fully submerged beneath the ice.
Cocytus was both a lake and a river, one of five that encircled Hell, the others being the Styx, the Phlegethon, the Acheron, and the Lethe. But Cocytus was the deepest and, where it entered the Range of Desolation, the widest. It was there that the Great Malevolence imprisoned those who had betrayed it. The lake had four sections, each deeper than the next: those guilty of only minor betrayals were permitted to keep their upper bodies and arms above the surface; those in the second level were trapped up to their necks; those in the third were surrounded by ice, yet a little light still penetrated to where they lay; but the worst were imprisoned in the darkest depths of the lake, where there was no light, and no hope.
The Great Malevolence itself had once been a prisoner of the lake, placed there by a power much greater than its own, but it had been freed by a demon that had melted the ice with cauldrons of molten lava. Each load of lava would melt only an inch of ice, and before the next cauldron could be brought, most of the ice would have returned again, so that every cauldron made only the tiniest fraction of difference. Yet still the demon filled its cauldron and carried it to the lake, working without rest for millennia, until finally the ice was weak and low enough for the Great Malevolence to escape.
That demon was Ba’al, later to mutate into Mrs. Abernathy.
The Great Malevolence was not a being familiar with sadness or regret. It was too selfish, too wrapped up in its own pain. But Mrs. Abernathy’s betrayal had hurt it more than it had ever been hurt before. Now it was forced to condemn to the lake the demon that had once saved it from this same ice. Had there been even one atom of mercy in the Great Malevolence, it might have found some way to forgive Mrs. Abernathy, or make her punishment less severe, as a reward for her help in times past.
But the Great Malevolence was entirely without mercy.
It had instructed all the hordes of Hell to gather at the Range of Desolation and witness Mrs. Abernathy’s fate. It would be a lesson to them all. The Great Malevolence demanded loyalty without question. Betrayal could lead only to the ice.
Arrayed before him were the jars containing the various parts of Mrs. Abernathy. At a signal from the Great Malevolence, the jars were emptied on the ice and Mrs. Abernathy—part human, part Ba’al—was reassembled until only the space for her heart remained empty. Finally, Crudford appeared accompanied by the Watcher, and carrying the beating black heart in his arms.
