In the Devil's Name Page 20

  He gratefully sucked in a great gulp of precious air and opened his eyes.

  A boy stood over him. He was screaming and driving the aberrant organism back, throwing lightning bolts from his fist like some sort of enraged god.

  Chapter 49

  I burst out onto the driveway from the undergrowth at the side of the road, and in my accelerated state, took in the scene in a nanosecond.

  The nightmare entity stood in all its diabolical glory in the Delaney’s driveway. It was holding Sergeant Grace in the air by a thick black tendril that was wrapped around his throat, and it was pulling him towards an obscene fanged muzzle that protruded from its body.

  Seeing it revealed in broad daylight was an experience hard to relate. It seemed to be more fluid than solid, constantly changing shape and consistency, randomly sprouting course hair where there had been bare stained bone or insect like carapace a second before. It seemed at one moment to resemble a monstrous, upright spider, but then its contours and lines would morph into something that looked more like a scaly, winged cross between an octopus and a wolf. It was all and none of these things; a formless antithesis of creation, born of another dimension where the physical laws of nature didn’t exist.

  I saw it slowly pull Sergeant Grace’s head into that disgusting dripping mouth, and screaming mad with a demented need for retribution, I charged. Lightning flashed from the object in my hand, sending a bolt of blue and white flame sizzling into the shifting mass of the thing’s body.

  It shrieked and staggered back, releasing the big copper. I pressed forward, stepping over Sergeant Grace who now lay gasping for air on the ground, and putting myself between him the thing, continuing to punch my fist towards it, blasting flare after flare after flare of purifying lightning into it.

  Giant arachnid legs, barbed stingers, tentacles and tendrils blew off the torso and disintegrated as I pummelled the screaming, thrashing monster with blue and white fire. It continued to back away, turned, spread tattered wings and attempted to take flight, but more bolts of brilliant azure light from my fist blasted flaming holes in the stretched leathery parchment and it crashed to the ground again, where it attempted to crawl away, emitting a shrill, ululating howl of agony.

  I pursued it mercilessly, never letting up my frenzied assault. Another bolt of lightning blew apart the disgusting maw that jutted from its body. More pulverised the entire lower half of its morphing torso, blasting a collection of scuttling scorpion like legs to ashes. I was screaming obscenities, venting my hate and disgust as I tore it apart.

  “Mother (flash) fucking (flash) piece of (flash) shit (flash) cunt (flash) sick (flash) murdering (flash) bastard (flash) fucking (flash) cock (flash) sucking (flash) ugly (flash) evil (flash) bastard…”

  (flashflashflashflash)

  At last, there was only the head left.

  It was roughly the size of a large beach ball, with a sloping ape like forehead dotted with a cluster of sickly glowing yellow orbs that were now growing dim. Underneath, the lower portion of what passed for its skull was a singular row of jagged and serrated eight inch fangs, like one half of an oversized bear trap armed with grossly enlarged shark teeth.

  The yellow orbs flared again briefly, and I heard it speak in my mind.

  The quota is not complete, worm, and you have won nothing. Others will come, and slaughter will find you. You will have no peace in this world, and when your cursed soul is reaped, the void will welcome you into the arms of oblivion. For eternity, you will scream and suffer…

  I didn’t know what the fuck it was talking about, and sick of it’s pish, I interrupted the rambling hateful diatribe with a final massive blast of energy that blew the head apart.

  The ashes blew away on the morning breeze till there was nothing left but the smell of charred air.

  Chapter 50

  Stephen Grace pushed himself to his feet for what felt like the thousandth time that morning, and watched as his saviour, who he now recognised as young Phil Densmore, threw a final bolt of bluish fire into the misshapen head of the alien spectacle, destroying it utterly.

  For a moment he just stood there behind the lad who was visibly panting; his shoulders heaving in the aftermath of the incredible outpouring of power he’d wrought.

  Grace’s mind was a whirl. The morning had started as unusual, had taken a turn for the strange, and had rapidly descended into a ditch of impossible madness. His understanding of the very nature of reality and the laws of physics had been irrevocably changed in the last few minutes and he doubted he’d ever sleep again.

  As he stood there watching the boy’s breathing slowly return to normal, Grace felt the shallow laceration across his chest which the beast had dealt him begin to tingle. Abruptly, there was a stabbing flare of pain that caused him to hiss between his teeth. He sank to his knees, but after a moment, the pain receded. He remained kneeling on the ground, trying to catch his breath. He could still feel the wound throb with a peculiar prickling sensation.

  The Densmore lad turned towards him, and Grace realised for the first time that the boy looked like a walking, underdone steak. He was coated in blood; most of it dried in large maroon coloured stains that covered his clothing, but there was also fresh claret oozing from a large puncture wound in his left shoulder that looked like it had been sustained only recently.

  In his hand, the boy was holding what appeared to be a playing card, and there was something about his eyes that was… very, very wrong.

  The Densmore boy took a step towards him and Grace, still on his knees, shuffled back, raising his hands in a protective gesture.

  “It’s alright, Sergeant. I’m okay now,” the lad said.

  I don’t think you are, son. Grace thought, regarding him cautiously. Not at all.

  The look in the lad’s eyes was fading, but for a brief second there... Holy Christ.

  It wasn’t that his eyes had looked dead. Just the opposite in fact. They’d been very much alive. Too alive somehow, and for a moment, Grace had been more scared of this skinny, battered boy than he’d been of the tentacled, shape shifting nightmare the kid had blown apart.

  Phil held out a hand to Grace who took it after a further moment’s hesitation. He was surprised by the ease with which the boy pulled him to his feet.

  “Thanks for that, Phil,” he said.

  The boy just nodded, not meeting his eyes.

  Grace remembered his young constable Ally Marshall, and turned to the wrecked patrol car. Ally, or the horrifying raw fleshed spectacle that Ally had become, lay draped across the smashed and blood stained bonnet of the motor, indisputably dead.

  Shaking his head sadly, Grace moved towards the front door of the Delaney house.

  “Where are you going?” Phil asked behind him.

  “Need to check the house, son,” Grace said, continuing forward.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t,” the boy said. “They’re all dead. Your other guy, Kenny as well. I was part of that… thing for a minute, and it showed me what it did. You don’t want to see.”

  Grace shrugged off the hand, wincing as the movement pulled at his chest wound, and strode forward again.

  "They’re my responsibility,” he muttered as he crossed the threshold.

  A few minutes later, Grace staggered back out the door, pale faced and retching.

  The boy, who’d remained outside, waited for him to finish and compose himself. He said nothing, but gave Grace a sympathetic look.

  Grace took a deep breath and asked, “Is this morning connected to what happened with you and your mates in May?”

  The Densmore boy nodded slightly.

  Grace returned the nod and made a decision.

  “You’d better come with me, Phil,” he said. “There’s some things you need to know.”

  He started walking towards the functioning patrol car, and after a pause, the lad followed him.

  As he sat down in the driving seat, the pain in his chest went up a f
ew notches, and he hissed again through his teeth.

  “It hurts?” the boy asked, climbing into the passenger side.

  “Aye, son. Hurts like a bastard.”

  Grace removed the damaged protective vest, unbuttoned his shirt and examined the wound. Already the ragged lips of the wound were swollen and angry red, and a foul smelling, semi opaque brownish liquid seeped slowly from the shallow laceration. He could feel a certain heaviness in his legs now as well. A mere infection wouldn’t flare up so quickly. This looked more like the effect of a bad snakebite. Grace tried to imagine what kind of venom might be delivered in the strike of a creature like the beast that had almost taken his head off, and decided he didn’t want to know. He looked across at the Densmore boy, who sensing his fear, gave a slow, sad shake of the head.

  “How long?” Grace asked.

  “Maybe an hour. I’m sorry.”

  Grace fixed him with an even stare.

  “How can you know that?”

  The boy slowly and delicately tapped the side of his head in an extremely creepy way that made Grace shiver.

  “I was in its mind for a few seconds, Sergeant Grace,” he said. “A hospital won’t do any good.”

  Grace grunted. The closest hospital was a two hour drive away in any case. He sighed in resignation.

  “We’d best get a move on then, eh?” he said, starting the car.

  Chapter 51

  I didn’t ask where we were going. It didn’t seem to matter, and I figured Sergeant Grace had his own questions to ask himself right then, the poor bastard. I knew the big polis knew he didn’t have long to live, and he took it pretty well, considering.

  So we drove in silence, away from the Delaney’s villa and the horror that lay inside and out of it.

  My shoulder didn’t hurt anymore, I noticed. Lifting aside the left half of my torn and bloody shirt, I could see there was just a pale patch of scar tissue where the thing’s talon had pinned me to the ground. It looked like an old wound long healed. Why it wasn’t weeping and poisoned like the unfortunate Sergeant Grace’s injury, I didn’t know.

  What I did know, was that the effects of my latest encounter with the demon went way beyond the mere physical. It was my mind and my soul that took the most punishment that morning, and those wounds never did heal.

  I looked down at the playing card that I found spinning through the fingers of my left hand, turning over and under the digits, forward and back, forward and back with mesmerising speed. I remembered Sam’s words to Griff that sun soaked evening in the back of Cairnsey’s car as he threw that very card down; winning the game of Switch they’d been playing.

  “Pick up five, just for being so shite at this game,” I said aloud.

  Sergeant Grace looked across at me with a raised eyebrow. I just shook my head in response and he returned his attention to the road.

  Back and forward, the King of spades spun through my fingers. It’d been Sam’s party piece and we all used to think it was cool as fuck, but none of us could ever replicate the quick, fluid movement and dexterity of hand he possessed, no matter how much we tried.

  I was doing it now though, just as smooth as Sam ever had; flicking that single card through the fingers of my left hand, forward and back again. I’m not even left handed. Sam had been though. He’d had a right handed Stratocaster copy that he used to string and play upside down, just like his hero Jimi Hendrix had, but without the awesome talent. Sam had always played that beat up guitar with a lot more volume and enthusiasm than skill.

  We’re in here, he’d said, placing his hand above my heart. Placing the card there.

  Looking out the passenger side window of the car, I realised we were on the road that lead to the residence of the big cop who sat beside me in the driver seat. Sergeant Grace lived in a former crofter’s cottage up on the hill overlooking Ballantrae, not far from the house we’d just left.

  Looking out to my left down the hill, the village lay spread out before me. Just a sleepy little hamlet with fields beyond the north and south ends and hemmed in by the grey Firth of Clyde on the west and the hills and forest to the east. I was amazed at how normal and peaceful the village looked from here. It all appeared so normal. Tranquil even. A small, sleepy Scottish coastal town fit for a tourist postcard. I wound down my window and found the morning to be as quiet as it looked.

  I knew though, that behind many doors down in the village, there were rooms splashed blood red, lives destroyed and terrible carnage. The peaceful silence that hung over the village like a cosy blanket would soon be torn away once the residents that had survived the morning started to discover those who hadn’t been so fortunate, and the village would never be the same again.

  The car continued up the hill till we eventually stopped in front of Grace’s single story white washed cottage. It was only natural, I guessed, to want to die in your own home.

  With a wince and a hiss of indrawn breath, the Sergeant got out of the car. I followed him up the garden path into the house where he’d lived alone since his wife had passed away a couple of years previously.

  On entering, I saw the narrow hallway was lined with pictures of Grace, his late spouse, and younger, similarly featured people who I assumed to be their children and grandchildren; the usual assortment of snaps taken on holidays, birthdays and the like. All the pictures were perfectly aligned in relation to each other and set with military precision at right angles. I could imagine Sergeant Grace assiduously checking each one with a protractor and spirit level. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere, and the house had a comforting smell of furniture polish, coffee and cigarette smoke that was somehow homely rather than stale.

  I was acutely aware I could separate and distinguish all three individual smells, and could even make out an underlying whiff of boot polish. Another new talent. I remembered Griff stalking me through the woods that night, sniffing me out.

  I followed Grace into his living room where the first thing he did was open up a drinks cabinet and take out a bottle of Glenmorangie eighteen year old single malt. He poured a healthy nip into a heavy looking cut crystal tumbler and downed it in one. He looked over at me briefly as he refilled his glass with a second, equally generous measure.

  “It’s a damned sin to just down this stuff like it was cheap tequila,” he said. “It should always be sipped and appreciated properly, but right now, a quick shot’s what’s in order, son.”

  He poured another hefty measure into a second tumbler and held it out to me.

  “Get this into you, Phil,” he said in a voice that indicated he would brook no protests.

  I hadn’t yet acquired a taste for the stuff. I’d only made the alcoholic leap from cider to lager two years before, and had almost thrown up when I’d taken a swallow of Whyte and Mackay that Sam and me discovered in his parent's drinks cabinet one night. This particular morning had been one of many changes though, and I took the proffered drink, knocking it back as Grace had done and welcoming the fiery flow in my gullet that seemed to explode like sweet napalm in my gut. It was wonderful, and I felt my frayed nerves settle somewhat almost immediately.

  Grace’s living room was as neat and orderly as the hall. It was the fairly spartan, uncluttered domain of an ageing bachelor, yet here and there were small things that denoted a woman’s touch; the collection of miniature china dolls that adorned the mantelpiece, the knitted throw that covered the back of the armchair, and the delicate and intricate hand made doilies on the low, well polished coffee table.

  Grace sat down with a heavy sigh in his armchair, resting the bottle of scotch and his glass on the coffee table, indicating I should take a seat on the overstuffed couch to the side of him. I put my own whisky tumbler down on a doily and he promptly refilled it, then took a packet of Regal cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offered me one which I accepted.

  For a moment, we just sat in his quiet living room, smoking and sipping good scotch, each of us absorbed with our own personal thoughts and demons. The
only sound was the low tock-tock-tock of the grandfather clock which stood in the corner. It’s a sound I'd always associated with death for some reason, and I used to get nervous when in a room in which one of those monstrous timepieces always seemed to dominate. Here though, the deep regular ticking was as comforting as the single malt.

  “Do me a favour, Phil,” Grace asked me, breaking the silence. “Stick some music on, would you? The stereo’s in the low cabinet under the window there.”

  I got up from the couch and opened the doors of the squat cupboard that nestled in the curve of the room’s large bay window. To my surprise, I was greeted with a very nice, and no doubt expensive, Bang and Olufsen sound system and a thoroughly decent CD collection, which consisted of mainly jazz and blues, but which also included some albums by Black Sabbath, The Who, Led Zeppelin and even Nirvana. Cairnsey would have approved of the man’s standards I thought with a twinge of sadness.

  “Anything you want to hear?” I asked him.

  He was thoughtful for a few seconds, then a slow smile grew on his craggy face and he nodded to himself.

  “Robert Johnson,” he said.

  I nodded, noting without much surprise that he had picked Cairnsey’s all time favourite performer.

  I inserted the CD into his opulent stereo, pressed play and went back to the couch where my cigarette was still smouldering away in an ashtray rendered in the shape of the cockerel of Portugal; a holiday souvenir that his wife had probably picked up. Somehow that cheap, tacky and chipped little ceramic ashtray was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen, and I had to fight against tears.

  The high quality Bang and Olufsen speakers subtly came alive with the hiss and crackle of deep blues. Red raw music, as Cairnsey would often describe it, put down au natural on early recording equipment back in the early years of the twentieth century.