Tales From The Wyrd Museum 1: The Woven Path (30 page)

Bouncing through the streets, the military Jeep had braked sharply when the factory exploded.

‘Dammit!’ Ted cried, as the fierce glare shone through the fog and the ground shuddered.

Neil shielded his eyes from the intense fight, then threw his arms over his face as a hail of stones and smouldering chunks of timber came battering from above.

Over the road, the splintered wreckage fell, ricocheting off the Jeep's hood and drumming on the rooftops of the trembling houses nearby.

‘What was that?’ Neil gasped, shaking the grit from his hair. ‘It didn't sound like a bomb—it was too big!’

'That was your factory!’ the bear told him. ‘Step on the gas, kid, I got a feelin’ this ain't gonna be as easy as those broads made out.’

Over the rubble the Jeep charged, kicking out a plume of dust in its wake.

Swiftly, they reached the outskirts of the devastation and sombrely gazed on the battered ruins of the once populated terraces.

Winding their way between fallen telegraph poles and crackling rafters, Neil drove the vehicle more slowly, until at last both he and Ted beheld the source of the sickening violence and their courage left them.

‘Dear Lord in heaven!’ the bear murmured.

Gorged upon the souls of the recent dead, Belial had grown to a fearsome height. Now taller than the factory had stood and retaining the shape of the squander bug, his immense, lobster-red limbs were the size of great trees, their cruel, hooked talons slicing through the air like tremendous scythes.

Above the bloated expanse of his blemish-ridden abdomen, his misshapen, poisonous features were now repulsively distorted. From his jaws, rivers of wrathful flame dripped through the night and his burning, swollen eyes stabbed through the gloom, brimming with unquenchable rancour and cruelty.

Casting back his monstrous head, ripping the atmosphere with the pinnacles of his twisting horns, the demon bellowed—trumpeting his glory out over the wasteland of his diabolic creation.

‘Now am I returned to my former majesty and splendour!’
he rumbled.
The worthless one has cheated the old fathers and is once more free to harry the unhappy world. Thus shall a new age of darkness and death begin!’

Cowering within the Jeep, Neil turned a stricken face to Ted.

‘You said it was just an imp!’ he muttered. ‘How are we supposed to deal with that... that thing?’

Grimly, the bear stared past him at the nightmarish spectacle and reached for the seam at his side.

‘We gotta do something—and quick,’ he said pulling open his stitches and searching inside the stuffing with his paw. ‘Get us as close to that big desperado as you can, kid!’

Reluctantly, Neil drove the Jeep up to the side of the demolished factory, pulling up just before a heap of bricks that blockaded the road.

‘I'm sorry I got you mixed up in this!’ Ted growled, a fierce look of determination stealing over his face. This ain't your beef, I gotta do this on my own!’

‘What exactly are you going to do?’ Neil hissed as the bear jumped from the vehicle.

With the unpicked hole in his side still gaping, Ted held up a small phial of green glass. ‘I'm gonna make the big lug take his medicine!’ he answered cryptically.

‘You'll never make it!’

The bear grinned at him and saluted with his paw. ‘So long, Neil!’ he cried, darting over the debris and into the factory ruins.

Neil stared up at the titanic horror that reared against a sky which was filled with the frantic sweep of searchlights. Never in his life had he seen anything that inspired so much dread and fear, yet as he watched the small, insignificant figure of the teddy bear leaping into the demon's vast shadow, he knew what he had to do.

Into the smoking wreckage, hopping over sizzling embers, Ted hurried.

Belial towered above him like a giant looming over an insect. But undaunted, the bear rushed on.

From his lofty height, the Archduke of Demons sensed his presence. The tantalising essence of the defiant soul which possessed and animated the toy, fascinated his dark mind and tempted his jaded palate.

Rolling his fire-brimming eyes, Belial stared down at the trifling shape that scuttled towards him and cackled raucously.

‘What new manner of beasts do they breed in this age of the world?'
 
he.
mocked, lowering one of his tremendous, segmented limbs and scraping the great claw through the rubble.

Ted leaped aside as the hideous talon ploughed straight for him and nipped quickly in the other direction as it bore round, chasing him over the wreckage.

With his gaze fixed on the infernal vision above, the bear raised the paw that held the phial and, judging that he was close enough, prepared to throw it.

Before he knew what had happened, the massive claw flew into him, flicking Ted helplessly aside.

Yelping, the bear was tossed through the air and the phial went spinning out of his grasp.

‘As a flea in the sand are you to me!’
Belial thundered,
‘What madness is it that brings you raving before my grand majesty? Are you so weary of existence you must see unto your destruction, for assuredly that is what you have found.’

Sprawled on his back, where the brutal blow had knocked him, Ted clambered to his feet, then stared in horror at his paws. Where was the phial?

Despairing and defenceless, Ted searched through the mortar dust and pulverised brick but no trace of the glass vessel could he find.

High over his head, he heard the rumble of Belial's scorn as the demon lumbered forward.

‘Easy, big fella!’ the bear called. ‘You know, you oughta sweep up round here, it really is a mess. I'd love to stick around for a few beers—but I gotta make tracks.’

Backing away as one of the legs of the horrific squander bug came crunching into the rubble, Ted suddenly caught a glimpse of something glittering in the darkness.

Half-buried in the dirt, lost in the gloom of the demon's shadow, was the tiny bottle of green glass.

The bear's face lit up, but even as hope kindled within him, the demon dragged his sagging, distended belly right on top of it.

Glaring upwards, Ted looked into the frightful countenance and stifled the qualms of panic simmering in his kapok.

‘OK, blubbermountain!’ he cried. ‘You want some sport? You gotta be in better shape than that to catch a flyboy of the Mighty Eighth!’

Tearing over the ground, Ted nimbly dodged the claws that came razoring down for him. Like a demented cricket he bounded from one heap of bricks to another, always a mere instant away from the barbed talons that came diving after.

Over the rim of the crater he sprang, his stumpy legs aching with fatigue. Roaring in amusement, Belial waved his massive limbs in the air, lashing them in the stuffed toy's path.

Gargling with hellish mirth, flaming strings of saliva came dribbling from his awful jaws, erupting in loud bursts when they hit the floor.

‘How long can you continue to see?’
the demon laughed.
‘Already I sense that you are weakening, your energies are nearly spent!’

Taunting him, the hulking fiend spat out a stream of fire that raged through the night and exploded a mere hair's breadth behind the puny quarry.

Howling, Ted lurched on. A patch of fur on his back was scorched and smouldering but, wherever he ran, the flames leaped up, blocking the way.

Cackling malevolently, Belial watched him scamper to and fro, like a vicious cat idly playing with an exhausted mouse. Then he grew bored of the game. The attraction of the bear's indwelling spirit was too strong and, when the claws next came snaking after Ted, they were driven by a deadly purpose.

Stumbling through the ruins, Neil Chapman stared at the terrible scene before him. The bear was still jumping from one spot to another, and, though his movements were slowing and becoming laboured, with every bound he was heading back into the deep shadow—drawing ever closer to the now uncovered phial.

Anxiously, Neil watched as Ted scooted towards it, when suddenly he saw one of the segmented limbs come swooping unerringly down.

'TED!’ the boy yelled. ‘Look out!’

For a moment the demon wavered, his cruel eyes glinting across to the edge of the crater where Neil was standing. With a ghastly roar, a torrent of flame went streaking from his slobbering mouth and struck the ground just feet away from the wretched boy.

But Neil's distraction was just enough. Vaulting one of the bitter talons, Ted reached the phial at last and snatched it from the dust.

‘OK!’ he cried, kissing the glass and scowling up at the pale, blemished belly. The party's over.’

Raising his paw, the bear leaned back and hurled the tiny vessel straight at the glistening, leathery hide.

Through the fume-filled air the phial soared, turning over and over until, with a sharp tinkle of shattering glass—it smashed.

From the broken phial, the water taken from the sacred well of the Nornir, which had once fed the mighty world-tree of ancient legend, splashed on to the demon's foul, rippling flesh.

At once the liquid frothed and seethed, eating into the infernal, crusting scales of skin like acid.

A deafening screech issued from Belial's jaws as a searing pain stabbed into him and a pall of oily, black smoke came gushing from the dark, festering wound.

'That's it, baby!’ Ted crowed. ‘Bawl your last! This is the Signorelli Exterminating Service—let us splat your ‘roaches!’

The gigantic squander bug thrashed his misshapen limbs. Inflamed by the torrefying agony, he staggered from the crater, his talons raking enormous trenches in the rubble.

Chuckling gleefully, Ted scurried over to Neil.

'Them sisters sure know how to brew up some powerful hooch,’ he laughed.

But the boy did not glance down at him, his eyes were still fixed upon Belial and to Ted's dismay he realised that the shrieks were dwindling.

Whipping around, he saw that where the phial had smashed and the water ate into the bloated hide, the wound was already beginning to close.

‘It weren't enough!’ the bear cried in woeful realisation. Them screwy broads didn't give me enough!’

Swaying unsteadily whilst he recovered, the towering demon tore his twisting horns through the dark, reeking clouds that had poured from his own flesh and his eyes swivelled down, overflowing with malice.

‘Godammit!’ Ted yelped. ‘It's really hit the fan now.’

With ravaging flame dripping from his screaming jaws. Belial lumbered forward, his malignant mind bent on vengeance.

‘Kid!’ Ted cried, waving the boy away. ‘Get outta here—I'll keep him busy.’

Neil took one final look at the nightmare that stormed towards them and blundered back, through the demolished entrance, and flung himself into the driving seat of the Jeep.

The roar of the boundless squander bug split the heavens with boiling savagery. Only once before had his demonic majesty been assailed with mortal agonies. Then he had been vanquished and consigned to the casket, but now his rage was terrible to witness.

Fleeing over the barren destruction and waving his arms over his head, Ted tried to divert the monster's attention from Neil.

‘Hoy!’ he yelled. ‘Dogbreath—over here!’

Intense as the beams of searchlights, Belial's evil glance glared into the shadows and espied the bear sprinting below him.

Snarling with immeasurable hatred, he lunged with his claws and Ted let out a terrified wail.

Turning the Jeep round, Neil stared wretchedly back at the hellish spectacle and his spirits sank.

All over London the bombs were falling. The flare of their explosions burning angrily in the misty sky—creating a perfect backdrop for the Archduke of Demons. It was like stealing a glimpse into Hades and the boy turned away aghast.

With a start, he whirled round again and peered at the murky horizon. Beyond the stretch of fallen houses a familiar sight was standing quiet and sedate in the gloom, its spikes and pinnacles pricking through the cloudy vapour.

A desperate, wild idea jolted through Neil as he remembered the harsh, accusing words Miss Ursula Webster had once addressed to him and a glimmer of hope ignited in his heart.

Shouting at the top of his voice, the boy sprang from the Jeep and raced back into the wreckage.

Galloping through the shadows, vainly trying to evade the demon's piercing glare, as he scrambled over the ruins, Ted's flight was suddenly curtailed as three ferocious claws plunged into the rubble around him.

A victorious roar blasted from Belial's lips as he plucked the yowling bear from the ground and lifted him high into the air.

Dangling helplessly by his right arm, Ted kicked and jerked, but his paw was impaled upon the sharp talon and though he continued to squirm and fight, he knew there was no escape.

Past the putrescent abdomen, peppered with a putrid rash of swastikas, the struggling bear was hauled. Up past the blighted ridges from which the enormous limbs radiated out in mighty, branching sections he rose until, finally, he was brought up to the demon's face.

The abhorrent folds of undulating, scaly skin that stretched either side of the hideously grotesque features pulsed and throbbed as the bear's singed, jiggling figure was swung close to the yawning jaws.

With his free paw, Ted covered his eyes. The immense head of the deformed, distended squander bug was too horrendous to look on.

Every feature of the revolting countenance was a separate nightmare in itself. The ghastly, down-turned mouth was rimmed by folds of clammy, twitching flesh—as pale and grey as that of a drowned and waterlogged cadaver.

From the rotting gums in which the jagged, yellow fangs were rooted, a stomach-curdling stench of death and decay gusted up into the bear's face until he gagged and balked.

The moustache which had once parodied the leader of the Third Reich now sprouted wildly in the dark crevices of the wart-ruptured cheeks and bristled up over the snorting, truncated snout.

Yet even though these foul, diabolic features instilled equal measures of terror into Ted's fluffy heart, none of them frightened him as much as the demon's eyes.