The Book of Doom - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,76

it,” then slid sideways on to the floor.

Zac cautiously poked his head round the edge of the hole and peered into a room larger than the one he was in. It was filled with what was probably until very recently state-of-the-art medical equipment, but which was now little more than scrap metal bent into a variety of interesting shapes.

A large metal box, which may once have been a prison cell, stood in the centre of the room. One of its walls had been torn away, the others were scorched and black with soot. Sparks rained down from a broken electric light that hung from the high ceiling. The other lights flickered, more off than on.

Three of the demons in surgical masks chittered excitedly as they launched themselves into the shadows beneath the broken light. A bellow of rage rocked the room and two of the demons were hurled from the darkness at terrifying speed. Their spindly bodies went krik as they broke against the wall.

Zac looked on as the third little demon came darting out of the gloom, its eyes wide open with terror. It made it four steps before a hand reached out of the dark and swatted it to the floor. The demon screamed as the hand dragged it back into the shadows, and then the screams became muffled before abruptly coming to a stop.

Silence followed, broken only by a burp from the darkness.

Zac stepped through the hole in the wall. “Hey, Angelo,” he said, doing what he could to control the shake in his voice. “Hoped I’d find you here.”

Breath hissed in the shadows. A growl rumbled at the back of a throat.

“I came back. You know, to rescue you. Like I said. Because, well, I was thinking and—”

A jet of flame crackled towards him, forcing Zac to throw himself sideways. He rolled expertly and took cover behind the buckled remains of a metal wall. The flame had come from high up, somewhere near the domed ceiling itself. Zac raised his eyes. The ceiling was ten metres high, maybe more. Higher than Angelo’s demon form had been. Much, much higher.

There was a clatter from the hole in the wall and Haures came staggering through. The Duke of Hell glowered gleefully up into the darkness and extended his arms out wide.

“Come, my boy,” he cried. “Come to Uncle Haures!”

Zac kept out of sight. He ducked down low and watched as the shadows parted revealing the Angelo-demon in all his true horror.

“Oh, come on,” Zac muttered as the monstrous shape stepped into view. “You have got to be kidding me.”

NGELO LOOKED PREHISTORIC. Not like a dinosaur, exactly, more like the thing that had killed all the dinosaurs off. And probably without even trying.

He stood seven or eight metres tall, with his horns adding eighty or ninety more centimetres on top. The horns scraped along the ceiling as he lumbered forward, his scaly red knuckles trailing across the floor, each thunderous footstep shaking the room.

“Yes,” cackled Haures. “Yes! What a specimen you are! What a specimen you— Oof!”

The back of Angelo’s hand swatted Haures across the room. The Duke of Hell was laughing with delight as he crunched into the metal barricade Zac was hiding behind. Both Haures and the barricade tumbled on for several metres, before rolling to a stop.

Suddenly exposed, Zac straightened up and locked eyes with the Angelo-demon. Bones grew like tusks from the monster’s neck and jaw. The fire in his eyes burned with such ferocity it looked like the whole top half of his head was ablaze. He snorted like a racehorse after a sprint, and each time he did, rings of black smoke blew from his wide nostrils.

“What did they do to you?” said Zac softly.

“We set him free,” said Haures, limping in Zac’s direction. “Impressive, isn’t he?” He looked the intruder up and down. “How did you get back down here, by the way?”

Zac didn’t answer.

Haures shrugged. “They tried to neuter him,” he continued. “Up there. They tried to smother his dark side, kill it off. But you can’t kill that. How can you kill that? All they did was bottle it up. And all we had to do was take the lid off.”

The Angelo-demon’s fist swung down at them. Zac and Haures leaped in opposite directions and the knuckles shattered the floor where they’d stood.

“And this is what you’re left with!” Zac shouted. “He’s out of control. He’ll tear the whole place apart.”

“We’ll train him,” Haures smirked. “We’ll break him, and we’ll