John Connolly - The Gates

“Our time has come,” she said. “Our long exile in the void is at an end. Tonight we have begun to claim this world as our own, and soon we will reduce it to a charred ruin. See! Our master approaches. Gaze upon his might! Feel his majesty! Behold him, the destroyer of worlds!”

She stepped aside, and the center of the vortex grew larger, the dark hole at its heart simultaneously expanding and becoming lighter. The gates were almost entirely gone, and the melting metal steamed and boiled. Slowly, shapes became visible through the murk. They were blurred at first, and shrouded in mist, but gradually they became clearer.

It was an army, the largest army ever assembled in any world, and in any universe. All the peoples of the Earth were as nothing before it. Its ranks outnumbered every grain of sand on the planet, every leaf on every tree, every molecule of water in every ocean. Demons of every shape and size, things formed and without form, had assembled behind the remains of the gates. Above the great army towered a black mountain so tall its top could never be seen, its base so wide that a man might walk for a lifetime and never circumnavigate it. At the heart of the mountain was a massive cave, unseen fires glowing within.

And then a dark form appeared at the entrance to the cave; from its head sprouted a crown of bone. It wore black armor carved with the name of every man and woman who had ever been born on Earth, and who ever would be born, in order that it would never forget its hatred for them. In its right hand it held a flaming spear, and on its left arm it bore a shield made from the skulls and bones of the damned, for in every evil man and woman there was something of the Great Malevolence, and when they died he claimed their remains for himself. He towered above his army, so that they were like insects before him. He opened his mouth, and roared, and they shook before him, for his glory was terrible to behold.

Another cheer arose from the assembled masses. Mrs. Abernathy basked in the sound. So consumed was she by the imminent success of their invasion, and the impending arrival of her master, that she failed to notice that the cheers had started to fade, to be replaced by mutterings of confusion, and a voice that appeared to be saying, very politely, “Excuse me…”

Mrs. Abernathy opened her eyes. Standing before her was Samuel Johnson.

“I have a question,” said Samuel.

Mrs. Abernathy was so taken aback that she couldn’t reply. Her brow furrowed. Her mouth opened and tried to form words, but none would come. The gates of Hell were about to be opened at last, the Earth destroyed, and all of its inhabitants torn to pieces, and here was a small boy who seemed to have, well, a question.

Eventually, Mrs. Abernathy responded in the only way that she could.

“What is it?” she said.

“I just don’t see the point,” said Samuel.

“The point?”

“Yes, the point,” said Samuel. “I mean, if you’ve all been stuck in horrible old Hell for ages, and now you’re about to come here instead, why would you reduce it to a ruin and turn it into somewhere that’s just as bad as the place you’ve left? It doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

Beside him, a pink demon with four legs scratched itself in puzzlement. Its form had the consistency of marshmallow, so its fingers got rather lost in the process and jabbed themselves into the demon’s brain, but at least it was thinking, or giving the impression of doing so.

“And what would you have us do?” asked Mrs. Abernathy. “Leave it as it is?”

“Well, yes,” said Samuel. “I mean, it’s got trees, and birds, and elephants. Everybody likes elephants. You can’t not like an elephant. Or a giraffe. And, personally, I’m very fond of penguins.”

The pink demon gave a little shrug of agreement, or as much of a shrug as something without a neck can give, which isn’t very much at all.

“If you destroy it,” continued Samuel, “then you’ll just be back where you started, with a big lump of rock that doesn’t have a whole lot in it except demons. It’s not exactly going to be beautiful, is it?”

Mrs. Abernathy took a step toward him.

“And why do you imagine that we would want beauty?” she said. “Beauty mocks us, for we have none. Goodness appalls us, because we have no goodness. We are all that this world is not, and we are all that you are not.” She raised a hand to the stars above her.

“And this world is just the first. We have a universe to conquer. We have suns to extinguish, and planets to crush. In time, each of those lights in the sky will fade to nothing. We will extinguish them like candle flames between our fingers, until there is only blackness.”

The little pink demon, still thinking about penguins, gave a disappointed sigh. Mrs. Abernathy flicked a finger, and he exploded in a puff of pink and red.

“He goes to the back of the line,” said Mrs. Abernathy as Samuel wiped a piece of demon from his sleeve. “And as for you, I am strangely glad to see you. It means I can kill you now, and enjoy our triumph with the knowledge that you are not alive to spoil it.”

Mrs. Abernathy grinned. Her body began to bulge. Her skin stretched under the pressure, opening tears in her face and on her arms, but no blood came. Instead, something moved in the spaces revealed.

“Now, Samuel Johnson,” she said, “look upon me. Look upon Ba’al, and weep.”

Nurd’s finger was poised over the ignition key. He saw Mrs. Abernathy step away from the portal, but not far enough.

“Come on, Samuel,” he whispered. The little boy was brave, so very brave. Nurd hoped that Samuel wouldn’t die, but the odds in his favor weren’t good. The odds in Nurd’s favor weren’t much better, but he was determined to try. He would be brave, if not for his own sake, then for Samuel’s.

Mrs. Abernathy took another step toward Samuel. Samuel retreated in turn. Then Mrs. Abernathy started to shudder and swell.

“Oh no,” said Nurd. “Here we go…”

Mrs. Abernathy’s skin fell away in clumps, withering and turning to dry flakes as it hit the ground. A gray-black form was exposed, wrapped up in tentacles that now began to stretch and move as they were freed from the constraints of skin. Only her face and hair remained in place, like a rubber mask, but it was stretched so tightly over what was beneath that it bore no resemblance to the woman who had once worn it. One of the tentacles reached up, separated itself into claws, and wrenched the skin mask away.

And still Ba’al grew: six feet, then eight, then ten, on and on, larger and larger. Two legs appeared, bent backward at the knees, from which sharp spurs of bone erupted. Four arms emerged from the torso, but only two ended in clawed fingers. The second pair ended in blades of bone, yellowed and scarred. A great mass of tentacles sprouted from the demon’s back, all of them twisting and writhing like snakes.

Finally, Ba’al reached its full height, towering thirty feet above Samuel. There was a cracking sound, and what had looked like a bump in its chest was revealed as its head, which now untucked itself. It appeared to have no mouth, merely two dark eyes buried deep in its skull, but then the front of the skull split into four parts, like a segmented orange, and Samuel realized that it was all mouth, the four parts lined with row upon row of teeth, a gaping red hole at its center from which a multiplicity of dark tongues emerged.

Samuel was too frightened to move. He wanted to run, but his feet wouldn’t respond. In any case, his back was against the garden hedge. He could go right or left, but he couldn’t go any farther backward. He felt something brush his leg, and looked down to see Boswell, who had escaped from the house and followed his master. Even now, the little dog wanted to be near Samuel.