The Book of Doom - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,81

air was filled with blinding light and a joyous chorus of Hallelujahs.

Zac rubbed his eyes.

Angelo and Herya and Satan and Haures all rubbed their eyes too. As did the little old man who was suddenly just there, sitting in his favourite armchair in the corner of his living room.

Zac looked around at the familiar wallpaper, the familiar carpet, the familiar everything. He looked at his grandfather, who was staring open-mouthed at the five figures who had suddenly appeared in his front room out of the blue.

“Granddad?” Zac muttered. Phillip turned towards him and an expression of relief crossed the old man’s face.

“Oh, Zac, there you are,” he said. His fingers squashed his globe-patterned stress ball over and over. “I heard you, Zac. In my head. I heard you calling for help. Please save us, that’s what you said. I heard you.”

Zac frowned. “What? I mean... you did?”

“Hey, look. It’s like the song,” chirped Angelo. He nudged Zac in the ribs and pointed at Phillip’s stress ball. “Your granddad. He’s got the whole world in his hands!”

Zac stared at the globe. Then he stared at the old man’s brilliant blue eyes. All those voices his granddad had heard for all those years. Asking him for help.

No, not asking.

Praying for help.

He had heard their prayers, and as far as Zac had ever been told, there was only one being who could hear people’s prayers. One supreme being.

“Oh,” said Zac. He swallowed. “My God.”

HE DARK LORD Satan, Father of All Lies, cleared his throat politely.

“Would someone care to tell me what’s going on?”

Philip turned to look at Satan. A flicker of recognition crossed his face, and just then, just for a moment, it wasn’t Zac’s granddad sitting in the chair. It was someone older. Much older. As old, in fact, as time itself.

The air around him crackled in a blaze of light so blinding that Zac was forced to shield his eyes. Phillip spoke, and when he did, his voice seemed to roll in from every direction at once.

“You,” he said, and the whole world shook with the power of it. “Don’t I know you?”

Satan licked his lips, which had suddenly become very dry. “What, me?” he said, brushing his fingers through his hair and hiding the stumps of his horns. “Um... nope. Don’t think so.”

“Oh.”

The light stuttered and faded, and Phillip became his old self again. Zac glanced at the others. Only himself and Satan seemed to have noticed the change that had come over his grandfather.

He quit. That’s what Angelo had said. Almost one hundred years ago, he’d quit. And nobody knew where he went.

Phillip gazed across the group. “Zac, who are these people?” he asked. “Why’s that one got wings? And why’s he in fancy dress?”

“Fancy dress?” growled Haures. He lunged at Phillip. “I’ll show you fancy dress, you old—”

As his hand touched the old man, the demon popped like a bubble and disappeared. Silence fell. Satan shuffled his feet.

“Well, this is awkward,” he mumbled.

There was a faint whoosh from the back of the room. They all turned to see Gabriel and Michael step out of thin air.

“Who’s this pair now?” Phillip frowned. “Where did they come from?”

“Good afternoon,” said Gabriel, his smile as false as ever. He nodded in Satan’s direction. “And look here, if it isn’t the Prince of Darkness himself. We were informed you were on Earth, but we didn’t believe it. And yet here you are.”

“Gabriel. Michael,” acknowledged Satan. “How’s tricks?”

“Oh, can’t complain,” Gabriel shrugged. “Can’t complain. Do you have the book?”

“What book?”

Michael growled and took a step towards the Dark Lord, but Gabriel blocked his path. “You know very well which book,” Gabriel smiled. “Our book. The Book of Everything.”

“Oh, the Book of Doom, you mean.” Satan breathed on his black fingernails and brushed them against his suit jacket. “We never had it. It was all just a trick. We only wanted the boy, and you fell for it. Too trusting, that’s your problem. Well, one of them, anyway.”

Gabriel’s eye twitched. He glanced across at Angelo, who immediately took cover behind Zac and Herya.

“Quite,” the archangel said. “But of course you realise that if that’s the case, then the deal is off. You did not give us the book, and so you do not get the boy. He shall return with us.”

“No, he won’t.”

Satan and the archangels turned at the sound of Zac’s voice.

“I beg your pardon?” said Gabriel.

“He’s not going with you, and he’s not going with him, either.”

Angelo tugged him by the sleeve.