John Connolly - The Gates

Samuel opened the front door and stepped into the garden. From the back of the house, he heard the sound of the Aston Martin starting up.

A flickering figure, like a picture shown on a cinema screen, apppeared on the path before him, surrounded by blue light. It was Mrs. Abernathy, or a projection of herself.

“Hello, Samuel,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t be there in person to witness your death, but I’m sure my servants will make it as uncomfortable as possible.” Her head turned, as though she were listening to something, then she clicked her fingers and the toad demon, in response to her command, hopped away.

“Was that the sound of your little friends trying to escape?” sneered Mrs. Abernathy, and Samuel knew he had been right: Mrs. Abernathy had not been aware of Nurd’s presence.

Samuel shrugged.

“Well, they won’t get very far. Naroth will find them, and kill them. It will be a swift death, pleasant compared to what I have planned for you.”

Her ghostly hand touched the remaining spider demon, causing the hairs on its body to stand on end.

“Chelom,” she said. “Eat him. Slowly.”

Nurd was approaching the end of Poe Street when a large, dark shape appeared on the road before him, its body tensed to jump. Naroth’s face was not capable of showing feeling, but if it had been it would have displayed utter astonishment. Instead of the expected children, and the adult woman, there was a single figure behind the wheel of the car, its body draped with a blanket in which two eyeholes had been cut. Naroth’s senses detected something familiar about the figure, but it couldn’t decide what it was.

Nurd stopped the car and stared at Naroth.

“Horrid thing,” said Nurd.

As though it had heard the words, Naroth jumped on the hood, causing Nurd to shriek in fright. Nurd put his foot down on the accelerator and the car jerked forward, but Naroth was holding on tight with its sticky toes. It spat concentrated venom onto the windshield, which immediately began to smoke and melt.

“Oh no you don’t,” said Nurd. “I’m not having you ruining this nice car.”

He braked hard, and Naroth was thrown off with such force that it left one of its legs caught in the side mirror. It landed on its back and began to twist in an effort to right itself. It heard the sound of the engine growling, and redoubled its efforts, finding its feet just as its head was struck by the front of the Aston Martin and its body was dragged beneath its wheels. It had just enough time to think, “Ouch, that-,” before it stopped thinking altogether, and everything went black.

Nurd looked in the rearview mirror at the mangled remains of Naroth, and the satisfying green smear that the toad demon had left along the lower half of Poe Street.

“Serves you right for messing with my motor,” said Nurd. “You should have more respect…”

Chelom began to climb over the garden wall, the weight of its body causing the hedge to collapse. It landed heavily and lumbered toward Samuel. As it did so, an arrow whistled by Samuel’s ear and buried itself in the spider demon’s body, causing yellow liquid to spurt from the wound. The spider demon reared up, then resumed its progress as a second arrow flew toward it. This time it struck one of the black eyes on the demon’s head and the demon arched its body in agony, one leg raised as if in an effort to dislodge the arrow from its flesh.

Maria appeared beside Samuel, Samuel’s toy bow raised, and another arrow already nocked, its tip sharpened with a blade.

“Now, Tom!” she shouted.

Tom emerged from the kitchen carrying a container of liquid from which a plastic pipe connected to a nozzle in his hand. He squeezed the nozzle and a jet of fluid landed on the grass at Chelom’s feet. The spider demon reacted as though the ground were hot when the sensitive taste buds at the tips of its legs came into contact with the liquid. Tom kept pumping, and more of the fluid squirted onto the demon’s body and into its eyes and mouth. It tried to retreat, but Tom pursued it relentlessly, until at last the demon began to twist and writhe before falling on its back. Its legs curled in upon its body, and it stopped moving.

Samuel wrinkled his nose.

“What is that stuff?”

“Ammonia and water,” said Tom. “Maria thought of it.”

But Maria was not listening, and neither, suddenly, was Samuel. Their attention was now concentrated on the image of Mrs. Abernathy, who was gazing upon them in fury.

“Come and get me,” said Samuel. He wanted to distract Mrs. Abernathy from the portal. He had to buy Nurd some time.

But Mrs. Abernathy simply disappeared.

MRS. ABERNATHY STOOD OUTSIDE what remained of the house. It was almost time. She had wanted to kill Samuel, but that would have to wait. She would find him, though, and when she did he would wish that the spider had consumed him. Again and again he had defied her, and Mrs. Abernathy was not one to tolerate defiance.

The portal had grown to such an extent that all that was left of the house were two walls and a chimney breast. The doors and windows were entirely gone, replaced by a huge spinning vortex with a dark hole at its center. There were no longer creatures coming through it. All such activity had ceased for a time, and those demons and monsters not otherwise occupied in sowing chaos throughout the town were waiting expectantly for the arrival of their master, the Great Malevolence himself. Winged, purple forms dangled upside down from lampposts, like great bats, their heads simply elongated beaks filled with jagged teeth. Around them flew insects as big as seagulls, their iridescent green bodies ending in long, barbed stingers. A phalanx of vaguely human figures had assembled by the corner of Derleth Crescent, dressed in ornate gold armor that was itself alive as the dragons and snake heads with which it was decorated slithered and snapped at the night air, the armor both a means of defense and a weapon. The armor had no face guard, and beneath each jeweled helmet there was blackness broken only by the flickering of red, hostile eyes. Above their heads, a banner flew: flames in the shape of a flag, burning in honor of he who was to come.

Mrs. Abernathy raised her arms in the air, and closed her eyes in ecstasy as a great cheer arose from the demons before her.

Nurd watched all that was happening from a side street nearby, the Aston Martin purring softly underneath him. He shivered as the woman lifted her arms, blue energy crackling around her.

There were ranks of demons in Hell, but the very worst of them had hidden themselves away with the Great Malevolence, and were rarely seen by the rest. They were monstrous beings, their appearance so awful that they shrouded themselves in darkness, unable to tolerate even the reaction of other, lesser demons to their blighted state.

Yet there was one great demon that felt no such shame, that did not seek to hide itself. It had become the Great Malevolence’s most trusted lieutenant, the demon that knew his every secret and to whom he revealed all of his thoughts, a demon that had studied the humans with hateful fascination, altering itself as it did so, its mind becoming both male and female, although it had always preferred the female side, sensing that the female was smarter and shrewder than the male.

Even dressed in the skin of Mrs. Abernathy, Nurd recognized the entity before him. After all, it had been responsible for his banishment.

It was Ba’al.

He sank back against the wall.

“I’ll never get past her,” he said bitterly. “I’m done for. We’re all done for.”

Mrs. Abernathy began to speak.