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.
XXXI In Which Mrs. Abernathy Reveals Her True Colors
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.
“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.”