The Book of Doom - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,34

going into Hell,” Angelo insisted.

“No, I meant I might kill you if you keep singing.”

“Well... Well... OK. You can if you want, I don’t mind. Seriously. Just, just please don’t send me back. I don’t want to get into trouble.”

“Come on, it’s Heaven. What are they going to do? Take away your harp privileges?”

“They might take away my posters. Or my comics. Or both,” Angelo said. His voice shook. He took a deep breath. “Besides,” he mumbled, “I’m having fun.”

“Fun?” said Zac. “You call this fun?” He saw Angelo shrug through the final wisps of fog.

“It’s more fun than sitting in my room all the time,” he said. “That’s all I ever get to do. No one else likes me, really, because I’m not a full angel. Even my mum doesn’t come round. You two are my only friends in the whole Afterworld.”

Herya snorted. “What? When did that happen, exactly?”

“Everyone says I can’t do anything. They say I’m useless,” Angelo said. He sniffed and blinked back tears. “And if you send me back, then that means they’re right, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, he’s good,” Herya said. “You’ve got to give him that.”

But Zac wasn’t listening. He was looking instead at a tattoo on Angelo’s scrawny chest. The words HALF BLOOD had been inked on to it.

“Who did that?”

Angelo looked down at the tattoo. “Hm? Oh, that was Michael. He said it was for the best.”

“Did he?” said Zac. The skin round the writing was red and raw. “Did it hurt?”

“I didn’t cry,” said Angelo, but he avoided Zac’s gaze.

“Right, you can come,” Zac said. “I mean, if you really want to.”

“Whoopee!” cried Angelo, punching the air.

Zac rolled his eyes. Whoopee. Who actually used the word whoopee?

“But don’t get in the way, don’t sing and whatever you do, don’t get angry.” Zac turned and marched briskly down the hill. “We really don’t like you when you’re angry.”

“This is it.”

It had taken another hour or more of walking before they came to a ramshackle circular bandstand at the lowest point of the slope. It looked like it might once have been a grand, impressive construction, but now the red paint on the roof was flaking away, and the purple drapes that hung from each of the eight carved pillars were tatty and threadbare.

The curtains were all closed over the spaces between the posts, but there were gaps here and there, through which Zac could see something moving.

“Are you sure this is it?” he asked quietly.

Herya gestured around them at nothing but emptiness. “No; maybe it’s in one of these other places.”

“All right, all right,” Zac said. “So what do we do?”

A curtain gave a sudden swish and a face appeared round the edge of the material. The thing looked almost rat-like, with a long pointed snout and ears that stuck out like perfect triangles from the side of its head.

The nose crinkled as it looked at the three of them in turn. “Yes?” it demanded in clipped, nasal tones. “Yes? Yes?”

Herya stepped forward. “Hail, oh dweller of the Nether Lands,” she began, “and Guardian of the Grand Portal.”

She made a movement with her hands in the air, and Zac realised she was following some sort of official protocol or tradition.

“We have come to make use of the portal,” she continued, “that we may leave this accursed place and gain passage to the Greek underworld, also known as Hades, also known as Erebus, also known as the Asphodel Meadows, also known as—”

“Well, you can’t,” sniped the rat-creature. “We’re shut.”

This took the wind from Herya’s sails. “Shut?”

“Also known as closed,” sniggered the creature. “Also known as Bugger off, the lot of you.”

“Shut?” Herya said again. “What do you mean, you’re shut?”

“I mean we’re shut. Read the sign!” The rat-creature’s eyes gestured left. The others looked and saw a notice fixed to one of the pillars. It read: WE’RE SHUT.

The face vanished as the curtain swished over again. “Come back tomorrow,” said the thing on the other side. They heard it give a low, sinister chuckle. “Assuming, of course, you can survive that long.”

From beyond the curtains there was a shimmer of green light. Zac bounded up the three wooden steps at the base of the bandstand and pulled the drapes aside.

A large wooden hoop stood inside. It was around three metres high and attached to an ornate base. The final flickers of an eerie green glow sizzled across its surface, then the hut fell dark and silent. Aside from the hoop, the place was empty.

And the