John Connolly - The Infernals aka Hell's Bells

The portal collapsed, and Mrs. Abernathy imploded, her being turning in upon itself, the substance of her spiraling inward as every atom in her body was separated from the next. Her disguise of human skin was sucked from her, revealing the old monster within. Her segmented jaws were pulled into her throat, her tentacles folded themselves over the front of her body as though to protect her, and there was a soft popping sound as the portal closed and the fragments of her being were scattered throughout the Multiverse.

THERE WAS A BLUE flash on Ambrose Bierce Drive and two vehicles appeared: an Aston Martin, its windows so cracked that it was impossible to see through them, its four wheels splayed outward like the legs of a collapsing animal so that the car rested on its underside; and a very battered ice-cream van, containing four similarly battered dwarfs covered from head to toe in raspberry syrup; two policemen whose hats had melted; and one bewildered ice-cream salesman with smoking hair.

“Next time we take the train,” said Jolly, staggering from the back of the van. “I feel like I’ve been dragged through a washing machine backward.”

His fellow dwarfs joined him, Dozy utilizing one of his horns to scrape up the last of the syrup. Acrid smoke began to emerge from beneath the van, quickly followed by flickering flames. Dan, Dan the Ice-Cream Man looked on mournfully as the remains of his business went up in smoke.

“Perhaps I wasn’t really cut out to be an ice-cream salesman,” he said. “At least the insurance will cover it, I suppose.”

Jolly tapped him on the arm. “Think you’ll buy a new van, then?”

“Probably. Don’t know what I’ll do with it, though.”

“Funny you should mention that,” said Jolly, adopting his most trustworthy of expressions. “How would you feel about transporting four hardworking, self-motivated individuals to a variety of business engagements?”

“Sounds all right,” said Dan.

“It does, doesn’t it?” said Jolly. “I wish we actually knew four hardworking, self-motivated individuals, but in their absence, how about driving the four of us around instead?”

Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel helped Nurd, Wormwood, Samuel, and Boswell to free themselves from the Aston Martin, as the doors had buckled badly when they traveled through the portal.

Nurd patted the roof of the car sadly. “I think she may have taken her last trip,” he said, as Wormwood wiped a tear from his eye. Wormwood had grown to love the Aston Martin almost as much as he loved Nurd; more so, even, as the car had never hit him with a scepter, used unpleasant language toward him, or threatened to bury him upside down in sand for eternity.

“At least you have a car, or what’s left of one,” said Constable Peel. “How are we going to explain the loss of our patrol car, Sarge? And where did it go?”

“We’ll never know, son,” said Sergeant Rowan. 41

Suddenly, there was movement in the flaming ice-cream van, and seconds later Shan and Gath emerged from the conflagration, patting out small patches of fire on their fur.

“Forgot about them,” said Angry, with the casual air of someone who has left a shoelace undone rather than abandoned two creatures to an inferno of metal and plastic.

“Where did they come from?” asked Constable Peel.

“We hid them in the fridges while you were up front with the sarge and Dan,” said Jolly. “Sorry. I mean, it wasn’t like we could leave them in Hell, not after that winged bloke found Samuel at their cave. It wouldn’t have been fair.”

“We’ve brought four demons to Earth,” said Sergeant Rowan. He had gone rather pale. “They’ll have my stripes.”

Constable Peel grinned. “I don’t have any stripes.”

“I know. They’ll have your guts for garters instead.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed. Not grinning now, are you?”

“But we’ll get into terrible trouble, Sarge, and I’ve had enough trouble to last a lifetime. The chief constable isn’t going to approve of us bringing demons back from Hell. He doesn’t even like going abroad for his holidays because it’s full of foreigners. If we tell him what we’ve done, we’ll be directing traffic for the rest of our lives.”

Sergeant Rowan looked at Shan and Gath. Having put out the flames on their fur, they were now fortifying themselves with the last of their home brew.

“Then we won’t tell him,” said Sergeant Rowan.

“But we can’t just leave them and Nurd and Wormwood to wander around. It wouldn’t be right.”

“We’re not going to leave them to wander around either,” said Sergeant Rowan. “Constable Peel, I have a plan.”

Nurd looked at the blue sky above his head, clouds scudding across it, lit by the amber glow of a beautiful setting sun. He smelled flowers, and grass, and burning ice-cream cones. He saw a cat scratching its back against a pillar, and a bird pecking seeds from a feeder. He felt exhilarated, and free.

And very afraid. He was an alien creature here, a demon. They might hate him, or fear him, and lock him away. What about Wormwood? Wormwood had barely been able to look after himself in Hell. Without Nurd he’d be lost, but even Nurd wasn’t sure how they were going to survive in the world of men.

A hand grasped his, squeezing it tightly. Nurd looked down and saw Samuel. Beside him, Boswell wagged his tail.

“It’s going to be okay,” said Samuel. “Look, you have a whole new world to explore.”

The whole trip to Hell, with all of its traumas and triumphs, had lasted a mere three hours on Earth, and his mother, although worried, had not yet begun to actively fret, although she did as soon as Samuel explained to her what had occurred. A cup of tea was definitely in order, but this time Mrs. Johnson went out to get the milk herself while Samuel had a bath. When Mrs. Johnson returned Wormwood was in the bath, and Nurd was wearing one of Mr. Johnson’s old bathrobes and blowing bubbles from a small plastic pipe.

“What are we going to do about those two?” asked Mrs. Johnson as she arranged tea and cake on a tray. “They can’t stay here forever. We don’t have enough room.”

“There’s a plan,” said Samuel.

And there was.

Samuel went to school as usual the following morning. To those who were perceptive enough to spot the changes, like Tom and Maria, he seemed older somehow, but also stronger and more determined, even before he told his two closest friends all that had happened the previous day. Then, his spare glasses fixed firmly upon his nose, he strode up to the canteen, where he found Lucy Highmore and two of her friends finishing some homework at one of the tables.

“Hello,” said Samuel to Lucy. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Lucy nodded, and her friends packed up their books and departed, giggling. Lucy looked hard at Samuel Johnson for the first time. She had never been unkind to him, but neither had she exchanged more than a couple of words with him before. They were in different classes, and only mixed at assembly. Now, face to face, and with no distractions, she thought that he was quite handsome in a funny way, and although they were the same age, there was a sadness, and a wisdom, in his eyes that made him appear older than she.

“My name’s Samuel.”

“I know.”

“Yesterday I asked out a letter box, thinking it was you.”

“Do I look like a letter box?”

“No, not really. Not at all, actually.”

“So it wasn’t an easy mistake to make, then?”

“No.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Yes, I would expect so.”

There was a silence between them for a time.