Kill Fish Jones (9 page)

Hanhut took a step forward and put on a reassuring look that nearly made Grimshaw throw up with fright.

‘Tell me, O cat creature with no fur, how does it feel to be so … mediocre?'

Grimshaw didn't know what mediocre meant, but he could take a pretty good guess. He flipped his ears and swished his tail, making ripples in the sand.

‘Um … kind of … depressing.'

Hanhut nodded his jackal's head and ruffled his wings in a sympathetic way that made Grimshaw think
he was about to be ripped apart. He swallowed hard, but managed to say, ‘What does it feel like to be so … amazing?'

The other demons burst into laughter that sounded like somebody choking horribly to death.

Hanhut raised a hand and they fell silent. ‘No, no. I will answer. Let the creature hear me.' He took another step forward.

Grimshaw shuffled back, getting slightly caught up in his tail. The other demons had stirred jerkily into life and were moving in different directions. Grimshaw had a nasty feeling they were positioning themselves around him. It didn't bode well. He twitched, then flattened his ears nervously and crouched a little closer to the sand.

His eyes glowing like yellow fires, Hanhut stepped closer. He raised a hand heavy with shining claws and reached out slowly towards the cowering Grimshaw.

‘Now, let's see. How does it feel to plunge your hand into a man's body and pull out his entrails? To see the life go out in his eyes and know you have ended all that he was and all that he might have been? To fly on wings of flame and see men pale and sink to their knees before you?' Hanhut shook his head thoughtfully. Then he bared his long teeth in a smile that was more snarl. ‘It feels … POWERFUL. That's how it feels.'

Hanhut smiled. Grimshaw wished he hadn't.

‘But if such a lowly creature as you,' Hanhut continued, ‘can never know how it feels to wield great
power, I can at least show you how it feels to be …
the victim
.'

Grimshaw gulped as the others closed in. He could feel them looking down their bandaged noses at him. Now he was keeping one eye on Hanhut and one on a darkening of the sky over to the right. There was only one thing in Limbo that could spread shadows in that way. The Horsemen. Hanhut and his friends hadn't noticed yet because they were all focused on Grimshaw.

‘I was just … erm … looking for Tun,' Grimshaw gasped, ‘but he's not here so …'

Quickly, he spun dials at random and reached for the send button. He didn't care where the chronometer was set for, pretty much anywhere in Limbo had to be better than the desert right now. Grimshaw had never met the Horsemen and didn't want to. One look at their terrible shapes moving across Limbo, surrounded by darkness and the sound of screaming, was enough to tell him all he wanted to know.

‘No, you don't!' A heavily bandaged hand took hold of Grimshaw's arm and plucked him from the ground, dangling him in mid-air so that he couldn't reach his chronometer without dislocating something.

‘Look!' said Grimshaw urgently. With his free hand, he pointed at the Horsemen heading towards them. In Real Space their arrival would blot out the light, casting shadow across the land. But in Grey Space the light just stayed, well, grey.

‘You won't catch us like that!' Hanhut didn't even
turn his head to follow Grimshaw's pointing finger, he just laughed. It sounded like the baying of a terrible hound. The other Avatars joined in, making a hideous clamour that hid the distant sounds of the approaching Horsemen.

The darkness arrowed down, swooping out of the sky. It was close enough now for Grimshaw to make out the huge shapes of the four Horsemen within it, wielding great fiery swords and clad in chain mail over bloody rags. He could see the night-black gloss of the horses too, their eyes full of flames and their lips rolled back to show teeth like tombstones.

Grimshaw shut his eyes and whimpered.

‘Look, he knows what's going to happen to him,' sniggered the most unravelled-looking Avatar in a voice thick with the dust of death.

‘Yes,' mumbled Grimshaw, ‘but I don't think
you
do!'

As he spoke, Hanhut turned his head, hearing at last the sound of tortured screams that followed the Horsemen wherever they went. He gave a hoarse cry of rage and fear. The others caught on and tattered hands everywhere flew to dig out their chronometers.

They were too late. The Horsemen were upon them, flooding the air with the stench of blood and hot steel. It filled Grimshaw's nostrils, making him gag and splutter. Now, hooves were thundering on the desert sand and Grimshaw could feel the power of the horses' huge bodies as they surrounded the Avatars.

Still in the grip of Hanhut's crony, Grimshaw fought hard, desperate to break free. But he felt the sharp pull and the whoosh of air as the lead Horseman bent down, scooping up his Ancient Egyptian prey by its bandages and Grimshaw along with it. There was a moment of jerking chaos and noise as they dangled by the horse's side and Grimshaw caught a jumbled glimpse of a night-black flank, a steel-clad leg and some unravelling bandages. Suddenly the thundering grew less as the horses left the ground, their hooves now pounding on air rather than solid sand. The jolting eased too as they rose higher and higher into the sky.

There was a horrible scream from over his head and a lurch and the grip on his arm let go as Hanhut's struggling crony was hauled up and flung over the horse's back. Unnerved by the sudden release, Grimshaw made an instinctive grab and got hold of something firm, silky and horribly hot. A huge fiery eye rolled to look at him – he was wrapped around the horse's head!

With a horrified shriek, Grimshaw let go again. Feeling the wind and the chaos whirl around him, he shut his eyes, knowing it would be a long way down. But he'd be free too, which was the main thing. And then, just as he began to fall in earnest, a blackened fist closed around his backpack and held on. Now Grimshaw really screamed. The Horseman had got him!

Almost faint with terror, Grimshaw felt his captor lift him by the backpack and turn him. He caught a terrifying glimpse of the Horsemen flanking his and
shut his eyes. He braced himself, waiting for the limb-rending to begin.

Hmm
, said a voice heavy with the sound of grating steel,
did we mean to bring you along?

Grimshaw knew that the Horsemen were angel Avatars, but anything less angelic than that voice he couldn't imagine. They were levelling out and speeding up now, the wind whipping about them, the air filled with the horrible screaming of the other demons as they pleaded for mercy. But Grimshaw could hear the voice perfectly, as if it didn't need to go through his ears to get into his head.

Daring to open his eyes again, he saw that he was dangling eyeball to horrible eyeball with his captor. He could see its skull face, barely covered with blackened flesh and with holes for eyes that glowed like furnaces. Flames flickered over its whole body, burning even in the gale that howled around them.

The furnaces were looking at Grimshaw with curiosity.

Answer
, said the Horseman. He shook Grimshaw and then set him down carefully, placing him between the horse's ears.

Grimshaw grabbed hold of a chunk of mane, wrapping his tail around the horse's neck for added safety. Even in the air, the galloping motion was enough to make his whole body bounce with every swift stride. ‘I'm an … an accident!' he stuttered, seeing an opportunity. He stared earnestly into the Horseman's
glowing eyes. ‘I was j-just looking for T-Tun. You know? The Curse of the H-House of Ombre?' He had to shout above all the wind and screaming, and what with the galloping motion his voice came out in bursts. He bit his tongue twice and tasted blood.

Indeed we do. And you? You are rather a small curse, aren't you?

‘G-Grimshaw, Curse of Lampwick the Robber. Very unimportant. M-my Architect is a stupid thief. No class.'

Grimshaw was trying hard not to see what was happening to his fellow demons, though he could make out Hanhut in the background, shrieking wildly as one of the Horsemen turned his insides into his outsides piece by piece. Grimshaw's Horseman seemed to have forgotten the Egyptian demon slung carelessly in front of him, still struggling wildly as it tried to pull itself off the horse. It wasn't going to succeed as the Horseman had one hand placed firmly in the small of its back. Grimshaw was ready to bet it was a grip of iron.

‘And you?' asked Grimshaw politely. ‘Do you have a name?' This time he didn't shout and though his voice was lost in the gale, the Horseman heard him anyway. Grimshaw was picking up the horse's rhythm by now, enough to ease up a little on his tight grip.

King One.

‘And your … er … brothers?'

We are all One
, said King One. He chuckled and leaned closer to Grimshaw. Suddenly, the chaos and the darkness around them seemed to thicken, the
screams to become even more desperate, the stink of blood stronger.
Think of us as a single entity with as many bodies as we need.

‘That m-must be very … c-complicated,' gulped Grimshaw, through a fit of the shakes.

King One straightened up and the chaos settled back to its normal level of dreadfulness.
Not at all, once you get used to it. Now, what shall I do with you, eh? We don't normally deal with third-raters.

Grimshaw felt a rush of hope. ‘You're n-not going to rend me limb from limb, then?'

I won't, no. By rights, it is the job of the Sisters of Gladness to wake the small demons. We Horsemen ride the worlds seeking out the powerful ones, like the jackal-headed Avatar and his friends. Only the Mighty Curse, that lies buried deep and sleeping, is beyond our reach. It is the greatest of all curse demons, you know, created by the great wizard of the Clouded Land.

Grimshaw nodded.

But when we find demons that belong to us, we do unto them as they do unto others. It's supposed to make them think. Pain and suffering, the only means they understand, all to try and wake them up.
King One sighed, making Grimshaw almost faint with fright at the sound of it.
A thankless task it is too, I might add!

The cries of the Ancient Egyptians were hoarser now, as if their owners didn't have much left in them to scream with. Grimshaw tried even harder not to see their twisted, howling faces and the unravelled bandages and strings of innards flying in the wind like banners.

‘But I think we're already awake,' mumbled Grim-shaw nervously. He peered up into the staring furnaces that seemed to be growing hotter.

No
, said the Horseman,
you are not awake. You do not see.

‘See what?'

King One chuckled. A finger, blackened and raw, shook itself under Grimshaw's nose.

Oh no, we angel Avatars can only point the way. In the end you must work it out for yourself. Here we are.

‘Where?' Grimshaw looked around wildly, then wished he hadn't.

I thought you wanted to find your friend? He is here, in the place where only he goes. It makes him feel powerful again. It's a shame he never looks beyond.

The Horseman whirled Grimshaw around his head and then let go. Flying through the air, the demon howled as he burst out of the darkness that surrounded the Horsemen into the grey Limbo nothing-light. He got a feeling of great emptiness and height, which rapidly turned to one of plummeting and pain as he hit the rocky ground and skidded several yards to end up at the feet of Tun.

‘Hello,' said Grimshaw. He picked himself up and shook off the dust, then took a look around. As far as he could see, he was on the top of a mountain. Not just any old mountain either – this one was easily the highest in the world.

Tun ignored him. This didn't bother Grimshaw at all because, unlike all the other demon Avatars, Tun didn't just ignore Grimshaw, he ignored everybody.

‘The Horsemen dropped me off. Wasn't that nice of them?' Grimshaw went on cheerfully.

Tun stopped staring over Limbo world spread out far, far below and turned to stare at Grimshaw instead. It wasn't a comfortable experience, and even though he was Tun's friend, Grimshaw couldn't help edging away.

One of the most impressive curse demons to look at, Tun stood nine foot tall and was robed entirely in a midnight black that was so dark it was almost not there. Only his pale, skeletal hands showed, and a hint of terrible eyes peering out from the depths of the cowl
that covered his head and drooped right down over his face (if he had one). The midnight robe was girdled by an age-blackened silver chain, each link shaped like a skull; and if all that wasn't enough, the demon's gaze was something that a Sufferer felt rather than saw. It pierced right through the heart.

Remembering Hanhut's screams, it dawned on Grimshaw that, as a more important demon, Tun's experience of the Horsemen was probably not a pleasant one. He flattened his ears anxiously.

‘I had a very good day today,' he hurried on, by way of changing the subject. ‘I blew up a house! BOOM! It was great!'

Tun went back to staring out over Grey Space from the edge of the precipice, his tall, night-black shape towering against the bleak sky. His silence didn't mean he wasn't listening, so Grimshaw went ahead and told him all about Marsha, doing sound effects and actions as well. He had played it down when telling Lampwick, because he hadn't wanted to share that wonderful moment of BOOM! with someone he didn't like. But he admired Tun, so he told Tun everything.

When he had finished, Grimshaw settled down to wait for Tun to answer. Although in Real Space it was so early in the morning that it would still be dark, in Limbo the light never got to be anything more or less than grey, like the light on a Real Space rainy day. This meant that Grimshaw could see the mountain laid out all around him. It was bare. In every direction was the
same grey rock, some parts just higher or lower than others, receding into the distance where it was barely distinguishable from the sky. The only difference was on Grimshaw's left, where there was a cliff.