Simon Green - For Heaven's Eyes Only

“Oh, bloody hell,” I said. “They’ve summoned up a demon dog. I hate those.”

“Any way round it?” said Harry.

“Beats me,” I said. “I don’t see any side corridors. But whatever that is, it has to be here to guard something. Or someone. So we have to go through it. . . . Okay, I’ll handle it. You go on. Find Roger.”

“Getting cocky, Eddie? No Drood’s ever managed to take down a demon dog on his own before.”

“You haven’t been keeping up with my reports, have you, Harry? I took one down at Lightbringer House.”

“I did read your report; you had Molly and Isabella there to help you.”

“You read my reports?” I said. “I’m flattered. Look, I can keep the thing at bay while you go talk with Roger. That’s what matters.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Yes, you can. You can’t stand me, remember?”

“Oh, yes. There is that. Anything for the family?”

“For family, Harry.”

We strode down the corridor together, took the sharp left turn, and found it wasn’t a demon dog after all. The whole of the corridor before us had been changed, transformed, possessed by a spirit out of Hell. The corridor was alive, its every surface organic, fleshy, corrupt. Like the living throat that had replaced the elevator shaft back at Lightbringer House. The walls were flesh: scarlet and purple meat, with dark rotting patches and networks of heavy, pulsing veins. The floor was a long, rippling, shocking pink tongue, slick with digestive juices. The whole of the ceiling was one long elongated eye, watching us unblinkingly with mad, fascinated intent. Huge, jagged teeth protruded from the meat of the walls in regular rows; and as we watched, they began to revolve slowly, like a meat grinder, or a living chain saw. The whole thing stank of blood and sulphur and sour milk; it was alive and it was hungry and it was waiting for us. I looked at Harry.

“After you.”

“It’s only meat and teeth,” said Harry. “You really think that could get through our armour?”

“That . . . is a demon out of Hell,” I said. “A major power and a major presence, to be able to overwrite our reality so completely. I have absolutely no idea what that thing could do to our armour.”

“It was put there to stop our getting to Roger,” said Harry.

“Almost certainly,” I said. “Still, when in doubt, cheat. If we can’t go through it, maybe we can go around it.”

I turned away from the possessed corridor and punched a hole through the ordinary wall next to me. My golden fist slammed through it with no problem at all. I pulled my hand back, and broken bricks and brick dust fell to the floor. I hit the wall again and again, making an opening big enough to step through, but when I stopped to look, all I could see on the other side was the possessed corridor, looking back at me.

“Damn,” I said. “It’s written over the whole hotel, mapping itself to every corridor at once. It’s everywhere it needs to be, all at the same time. Whichever way we go to try to reach Roger, this thing will always be there to block our way.”

“You understood all that from looking through one hole?” said Harry.

“Of course not. I accessed my armour’s sensors.”

“We should have brought an exorcist with us.”

“Well, next time we’ll know, won’t we?” I said. “You can’t think of everything when you’re in a hurry. Why don’t you wish for a tactical nuke as well, while you’re at it?”

“Don’t get tetchy,” said Harry. “Let me try something.”

He concentrated and brought both his arms together before him. Swift ripples ran along his golden armour, which then shifted and fused together, forming itself into a huge machine gun. The kind you see in action movies when the hero wants to bring down a whole house at once. I moved quickly to get out of the way, and Harry opened fire on the possessed corridor. Strange-matter bullets exploded from the long golden barrel with incredible speed and fury, chewing up the demonic flesh of the floor and walls. Purple meat exploded under the impact, dark blood spattering everywhere, and sustained firepower ripped the long pink tongue apart from one end to the other. Something screamed horribly: a vast, harsh and utterly malignant sound. Harry shifted his aim, tearing the corridor apart and devastating the elongated eye from end to end. The long split pupil exploded, and thick fluids rained down into the churned-up flesh of the corridor. Harry stopped firing, and the gun sank back into his armour again. And as he stood there, considering his work and finding it good, every single strange-matter bullet he’d fired jerked free of the demonic meat and flew back to him, to be absorbed into his armour.

“All right,” I said. “That’s impressive. Terribly destructive, but neat with it. I didn’t know our armour could do that.”

“I’ve been practicing,” said Harry. “Roger gave me the idea. His favourite film was always The Wild Bunch. I don’t know how many times he’s made me watch it with him.”

“The fiend,” I said.

And then we both broke off and stared blankly as the ripped and torn-up flesh of the possessed corridor repaired itself, rebuilding and reestablishing itself, demonic flesh fusing back together until the corridor looked exactly as it had before. Rotting walls, pulsing tongue, watching eye.

“ Damn ,” said Harry.

“Well, quite,” I said. “ Major demonic presence . . .”

“Now what do we do? Send out for a tanker full of holy water?”

“Take too long,” I said. “Let me think. This is more Molly’s territory than mine.” I thought hard. This had to be a delaying tactic, to hold us off while Roger and Dusk got the hell out of Dodge, probably taking the mind-influencing machine with them. We had to find a way through. . . . A thought occurred to me.

“Are you religious, Harry?”

“What? Not as such . . . not in any organised way. Hard to find an organised church that wants anything to do with the likes of Roger and me. You?”

“In my own way. We know Heaven and Hell are real; the family has regular dealings with them. But we don’t know much about either; only enough to know we don’t want to know more.”

“How is this helping us?” said Harry. “What do you want me to do, shape my armour into a big golden crucifix?”

“Might come in handy if we come up against a nest of vampires,” I said. “But no, I have something else in mind. And you’re really not going to like it, Harry.”

“What else is new?”

“How brave are you feeling?” I said. “And how much do you really love Roger?”

“What kind of a question is that?” said Harry angrily.

“A relevant one. You’re not here for duty or vengeance, like me. Or even to fight Satanists. You’re here to find, and hopefully rescue, the hellspawn Roger Morningstar. You’re the only one who came here just for him. Because you love him. And there’s no place for love in any place possessed by Hell. So I think you should armour down and walk into that corridor, and trust to your love to protect you.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Maybe. But I think it’ll work. If you’re up for it.”

“I knew it,” said Harry. “You want to get rid of me!”

“You’re here for Roger! That’s what matters to you! So is he your love true or not? Because if he isn’t, this is where you get to find out the hard way. If he is, Hell itself won’t be able to stand in your way.”

“Love conquers all?” said Harry. “Aren’t you a little old to be believing in that?”

“I believe in evil because I’ve seen it,” I said. “And I believe in good because I’ve seen it. And I believe in love. My Molly went into Limbo, into the shadow of death itself, to find me and bring me back. Do you dare do less for your love? Whenever Hell intrudes on Earth, Heaven is also there. What we do in Heaven’s gaze has Heaven’s strength.”