John Connolly - The Gates

[21]There are lots of people throughout history with the word “the” somewhere in their names. Some of these people were rather pleasant, such as Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199 A.D.), the English king (even if he didn’t speak much English, oddly enough, although he was very good at French) who commanded an army by the age of sixteen, fought in the Crusades, and forgave the young boy who shot the arrow that fatally wounded him; and Alfred the Great (849-899 A.D.) who defended his Saxon kingdom of Wessex against the Danish invaders and was, well, great.

On the other hand, there were some people with “the” in their names who were very unpleasant indeed. Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476 A.D.) of Wallachia, who was also known as Dracula and inspired the name of the famous vampire, liked to stick his enemies on big spikes. Ivan the Terrible of Russia (1530-1584 A.D.) was a tyrant and a bully who died while playing chess. It wasn’t the excitement of the game, though: he was probably poisoned with mercury. Finally, certain historial figures with “the” in their names were just a bit lame. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: Heneage the Dismal (1621-1682 A.D.); Hugh the Dull (1294-1342 A.D.); Charles the Silly (died 755 A.D.); and Wenceslas the Worthless (1361-1419 A.D.), who once cooked a chef alive for serving a bad ragout.

[22]It is generally agreed that there are three orders of demons. A book named Le Dragon Rouge (The Red Dragon), possibly written in the sixteenth century classified the demons of hell in three tiers, from officers to generals. Books like Le Dragon Rouge are known as “grimoires,” and to have power they must be written in red ink and, some say, bound in human skin, which means that they probably won’t be stocked by your local bookstore.

[23]Mrs. Abernathy did not like the smell of Earth. Her demonic senses made her acutely sensitive to all pleasant scents, so that she was even aware that the Milky Way itself smelled bad to her. Actually, astronomers who were recently sifting through thousands of signals from Sagittarius B2, a big dust cloud at the center of our galaxy, found a substance there called ethyl formate, which is the chemical responsible for the flavor of raspberries, and the smell of rum, the drink popular with pirates. Therefore, our galaxy tastes a bit of raspberries and smells of rum, which is nice.

[24]Be wary of anything that is offered to you for nothing, especially if it is a new product that the makers are anxious to test. Usually, they will have discovered that the bunny rabbits, dogs, or iron-stomached employees who have already tried it have not died or gone blind as a result, and therefore it’s about time to try it on people who might, at some point, be expected to pay for it. Unless you’ve always wanted to be a human guinea pig, it might be wise to think twice before saying yes to something that a stranger hands to you with a smile, free of charge, especially if there is a doctor or a lawyer hovering nervously nearby.

[25]This is unlike the small towns in television detective shows, where so many people die that it’s a wonder there’s anyone left in the town to kill by the end of the first series. you’d imagine that some of the residents might wonder about this and think, “hmmm, our town appears to be populated entirely by murderers, or people who are about to be murdered, and since we’re not murderers then we must be potential victims. Marjorie, grab the kids and the dog. We’re going to live in new Zealand…”

[26]Actually, teleportation is not nearly as far-fetched as you might think. Scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute in Maryland recently managed to teleport the quantum identity of one atom to another a few feet away. However, teleportation of humans is a long way off, as the experiment only works once in every one hundred million attempts. Therefore the chances of you being teleported and arriving as interesting goo at the other end, if you arrive at all, are very high indeed. you don’t want to be the subject of the following conversation:

“Is he there yet?”

“Well, bits of him are…”