Hooflandia (Clovenhoof Book 7) Read online

  Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

  And then in smaller letters:

  No alcohol beyond this point

  This is a designated no-smoking area

  Please turn off your mobile phone

  As the damned moved through the arch, they passed beneath a series of thrumming air nozzles. Part of the delousing process, Rutspud assumed.

  The entrance was divided with retractable tape into queuing lanes that formed a zig-zagging labyrinth. Some of the lanes ended at dead ends. Some merged with others to create points of angry congestion. At the centre, there was a beautiful recursive lane (based on Escher-geometry) where the person you were queuing behind was yourself. Ultimately, the lanes let out at a long row of security booths. They were staffed by several dozen former members of the UK Border Agency, so naturally, only one of the booths was open.

  Rutspud was astounded to see that the total queue to get into Hell amounted to less than a hundred people (plus a very angry man in the recursive queue who was about to pick a fight with himself).

  “There’s no backlog,” said Rutspud.

  “Not just no backlog, no people,” said Belphegor.

  Rutspud went up to the one open booth and tapped gently on the glass. One of the damned gazed down at him, her eyes betraying nothing but her desire to see right inside him and understand his innermost secrets.

  “I wonder if you could check a couple of names please?” he asked her. “There are some recently deceased that we seem to be missing.” She continued to stare at him with that disconcerting look. “Um, perhaps you need the names?” he added.

  “Harrumph, seen this before,” said Belphegor and, bringing a walking stick over his shoulder, battered violently on the glass of the booth. The woman’s eyes sprang open, revealing that the previous gaze had been somehow painted onto her eyelids. Rutspud marvelled at the technique. He was a past master at efficient loafing, but this was new to him.

  “Check these names against your list please!” ordered Belphegor. “Claymore Ferret, Hank Schlaeber-Foster and Futon Le-Phew.”

  The woman turned to the interior of her cabin, glanced through some paperwork and pressed buttons on an unseen machine.

  “No,” she replied through the intercom.

  “No what?” said Belphegor.

  “No, they’re not on the list.”

  “But they’re dead.”

  “Are they? That’s nice.”

  “And they should be here.”

  The woman looked at her paperwork again. “They’re not on the list.”

  Belphegor was disconcerted. “This is not normal, Rutspud, me lad. The queues should be much longer.”

  “We’re just really efficient out our job,” said the woman. “They come to us, processed and – wallop – they’re through.”

  “I’ve been waiting here for three weeks,” said the damned man at the head of the queue.

  “Shut it, mush!” snarled the woman. “You want me to set Cerberus on you again?”

  “Ah, there’s a thought,” said Belphegor and trundled off.

  “What’s a thought?” said Rutspud, following.

  Down at the very entrance to Hell, straining against a thick chain embedded in the rock was the three-headed hellhound Cerberus. Rutspud kept his distance. Cerberus bared all of his available fangs and growled. Drool spattered on the shredded remains of what might have been Cerberus’s bed, might have been his last meal.

  “You think the dog ate them?” said Rutspud.

  “No, you fool. He’s going to help us track them. Cerberus, devourer of the dead. He can sniff them out wherever they hide. You’re going to find that nasty Claymore Ferret for us, aren’t you?”

  One of the heads barked in eager agreement. Another was already sniffing at the ground. The third, Rutspud could swear, was eyeing him up as a pre-hunt snack.

  “Unchain him then,” said Belphegor.

  “Me?” said Rutspud, tremulously.

  “I can’t do all the work round here, can I now?”

  Rutspud gathered his courage – there wasn’t much of it to gather so it didn’t take long – and sidled round the hook tethering Cerberus to the rock. Three heads tracked him but didn’t attack.

  Rutspud swallowed hard as he reached for the chain.

  “There, there. Good doggies. Uncle Rutspud’s going to unleash you. That’s right. Good boy. I mean, boys. See? Off comes the hook and now we’re going to goooooooo….”

  “That’s it!” yelled Belphegor after him as the hellhound bounded off, dragging Rutspud behind. “Follow that trail! Don’t let go, Rutspud. I’m right behind you!”

  Bounced off walls and floors, the world around Rutspud was a blur, a painful blur at that. However, he could see that they were heading out of Hell, away from the gate.

  “Is he heading towards Limbo?” called Belphegor, intrigued.

  Rutspud would have answered but he was physically occupied with holding onto the chain and mentally occupied by the mystery of what damned souls might be doing out in Limbo. There was nothing there but, well, nothing and at some ineffably distant point, the Celestial City.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Celestial City.

  Heaven.

  Upstairs.

  The Celestial City came into being in the very moment of creation. The Celestial City, free from the bonds of time, gravity, physics and all manner of inconvenient real-world stuff, was eternal and unchanging. As such, it had no history. But that didn’t mean things didn’t happen there…

  Joan of Arc frowned at the sight before her. There was plenty in Heaven to make one frown if one thought about it. The Almighty was omnipresent – He was everywhere – and yet He had a throne on which He sat. Similarly, worship in the Celestial City was to be directed to the Almighty but, given that the Celestial City was where the Almighty resided, trying to pray in the right direction was like watching a compass at the magnetic north pole. And yet there was the Great Hall of Worship with rows of marble pews as far as the eye could see, all facing undeniably towards the Almighty.

  It was at these pews that Joan was frowning. They had been home to buttocks of all creeds and nations but she’d never before seen towels placed upon them. These were not normal towels either. They were huge gaudy things, emblazoned with the Manchester United logo, cartoon characters and national flags. It was very strange…

  They were also putting something of a dent in the gleaming white majesty of the place and, without a moment’s thought, Joan was gathering them up.

  “Oi! Oi. What’s your game then?” came a shrill voice.

  Joan looked up. The woman had a look of extreme surprise, mostly caused by her eyebrows, drawn on with pencil, several inches above where a normal human would keep them.

  “I was tidying up,” said Joan.

  “Ooh no missy, you don’t go moving a person’s towel. No, that’s against everything that’s right and proper, that is. We have the right to bagsy a spot with our towels, everyone knows that.”

  Joan was about to question her but heard the sound of harp playing that signalled one of the showier angels making an entrance. She looked up to see Eltiel, bathed in holy light, although this light looked a little unnecessarily ‘disco’. Joan’s relatively-recently-deceased friend, Evelyn, always referred to him as ‘Eltiel John’ but Joan didn’t get the joke. When you’d been dead for nearly six hundred years, a lot of jokes went straight over your head.

  “Joan,” said Eltiel, his hands clasped together in prayer, “St Francis of Assisi would like your help in the Blessed Animal Sanctuary.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute. I need to ask this –”

  “It is most urgent. He was keen for me to make that point in the strongest terms possible,” he intoned solemnly, with some extra mystical reverb for emphasis.

  “Fine. I’ll be there in a jiffy,” said Joan. Joan turned to the woman while Eltiel performed a complicated spotlit routine above her. “What is this thing, ‘bagsy’?” she
asked.

  “It’s bagsy.” The woman dragged a Disney Princess towel out from the pile over Joan’s arm and placed it back on a pew seat. “Let’s say I have reserved a spot then, if we’re going to get all stuck-up about it.”

  Joan looked at the woman and then looked around at the Great Hall of Worship.

  “The Hall is infinite in size. Why would you feel the need to reserve a spot?”

  The woman gave Joan a look that was part confusion, part pity but mostly contempt. “How else can we be sure we get the best spot?”

  “Best spot?” said Joan and was about to point out that this was Heaven and that every spot was the best spot when Eltiel gave a meaningful cough and she accepted she probably needed to be somewhere else.

  Joan ran through the Celestial City, dodging and weaving through the strolling crowds of the blessed dead, although crowds tended to part naturally for someone sprinting in gleaming plate armour. Despite her urgency, something made her stop. Amongst all the gentle souls and good people of the city, the man winking at passers-by at the entrance to the Blessed Animal Sanctuary stuck out like a slug in a salad.

  Joan was happy that the blessed dead came in all shapes and sizes, and knew that it was useless to judge people based on their appearance, but this man just didn’t look as though his heart was pure. Was it the creepy nudges that he kept giving people as they approached? Was it that she’d heard him call every single woman who walked by darlin’? No, she decided, it was the sign he held in his hands that said Gin and Whores, this way.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Sellin’ gin and whores, darlin’,” he said. “How’d you like to get something naughty inside you, eh? Or you could have a gin!” He laughed raucously at his own joke. Joan stared at him stonily. “Well, yes all right,” he coughed. “Move along, will you darlin’, you’re putting the punters off.”

  “But what are you doing?” she insisted.

  “Which bit don’t you understand, is it the gin or is it the whores? I ain’t got time to be doing the birds and the bees wiv you, luv.”

  She frowned. She was getting a serious frown work-out today. “Sex and alcohol are not forbidden in Heaven.”

  “No, they are not, luv.”

  “But you are selling them.”

  “Yes.”

  “And thereby turning something fine and appropriate into something…”

  “Ah you got me darlin’! It’s all about the inappropriate, ain’t it? What’s the fun of doing something if no one’s gonna object. I’m all about sorting people out with their favourite bit of inappropriateness and them sorting me out with some ready cash in exchange.”

  “There’s no money in Heaven,” said Joan.

  “Shows what you know, darlin’. I got a big fat wad in my trousers that’ll –” He stopped. Joan’s blade was an involuntary muscle jerk away from cutting his throat. He swallowed, his bravado gone. “I meant this, nothing mucky,” he said, drawing a fat bundle of paper from his pocket.

  Joan put her sword away and snatched the notes from his hand. She gave them a cursory but furious glance.

  “Who’s this meant to be?” she said, tapping the illustration.

  “It’s the baby Jesus, ain’t it? He’s on the five dollar note.”

  “He’s got his thumbs up!”

  “That’s right. He’s saying, ‘good on yer, mate. You’ve got five dollars. Why not earn yourself ten dollars? It’s got me mum on it.’”

  There was a cough from on high. Eltiel hovered above her.

  “Are you following me everywhere?” she snapped and ran into the Blessed Animal Sanctuary which she was given to understand was much like modern day zoos on earth except the monkeys in the celestial version didn’t debase themselves in public or fling filth at passers-by.

  St Francis of Assisi stood before the lion enclosure looking even more flushed than usual. He had his hands on his hips, facing off with a man who had a large rifle hooked over his arm and a small group of cronies behind him.

  “How goes it?” said Joan, seeing that things weren’t going all that well.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Joan,” said Francis. “This dweadful man wants to take one of the lions.”

  “Why would you want to take a lion?” asked Joan, eyeing the rifle.

  “Just borrow it for a bit,” said the man. “Spot of big game hunting would go down a treat. Stay and watch if you want to see an expert in action.”

  “There will be no shooting of lions here. Or shooting of anything else,” she added firmly. “Put the gun away.”

  “Cecil finds it tewwibly upsetting,” said Francis, looking all dewy-eyed at the male lion hunched mournfully in the corner of the enclosure.

  “I think you’ll find, missy, that I have a right to shoot what I want. I’ve very much enjoyed the bird shooting here, but I need something smart for my new digs. Lion’s head’ll be just the jobbie.”

  “Fine,” said Joan. “You want a lion’s head on your wall. We’ll put one there.”

  “As long I get to bag the beast.”

  “You mean kill it?”

  “Chwist pweserve us.”

  “Claymore Ferret doesn’t hang another man’s trophy on his wall,” said the man. “That’s worse than taking sloppy seconds with a Milanese whore. Of course I want to kill it.”

  “I cannot believe,” said Joan, “that I need to explain why you’re not allowed to kill something – and I can’t emphasise this last bit enough – in Heaven.”

  “The theological conundwum of what death-after-death might even be like is staggewing,” said Francis.

  The man gave a knowing laugh.

  “You see, little miss here doesn’t get it. She may wear the shiny armour but underneath it all she’s a girl. Doesn’t know a man’s got needs. To stalk, to take, to feel the life go from a body beneath him. You, my good man, you understand. And I know what you’re after.” He pulled out a wad of paper notes that looked awfully familiar to Joan. “I always got what I wanted in life, and if this is Heaven, then obviously I should get what I want now. That’s the point of Heaven.”

  “It’s really not,” said Joan but the man ignored her.

  He pulled away a half inch pile of notes and tucked it in the top of Francis’s robe. “A little something for your conscience. There’s a good chap.”

  Francis looked at the cash in disgust. “Bwibewy?”

  “Bribery is a dirty word. But if you’re worried about that, forgiveness is only a click away.”

  “You’re wasting your time, Claymore,” said a skinny woman in impossibly high heels. “They’re simple proles. They don’t know how it works. You can’t expect the lower classes to understand.”

  “You might have hit the nail on the head, Cynthia,” said Claymore. He tipped an imaginary hat at her and spoke in a theatrical aside to nobody in particular. “Third mistress, definitely the one with the brains, although that’s not what I normally look for in a mistress! Ha!”

  “There are no ‘proles’ in Heaven,” said Joan wearily. “There is no class. There is no property. There is no money. No one kills anyone else. No one has power over others. Everything is free and we’re all equal.”

  “My God,” said the skinny woman. “She’s a bloody commie.”

  “French one at that,” said Claymore, amused. “Money is power, and power is everything, mon cherie.”

  “Not. Here,” snarled Joan.

  “Even here,” he said. “They say money is the new God, don’t they?”

  Joan, sickened, turned to Francis. “Get the lion out of the enclosure.”

  “Knew you’d see sense,” grinned Claymore, slapping Joan’s bottom playfully. “You’re a good girl. And feisty too. Bloody arousing watching you and Cynthia having a little ding-dong. How do you feel about a little ménage à trois, as you Frenchies say?”

  Joan whirled, drawing her sword for the second time that day. This time, she didn’t even care if she took his throat out or his en
tire head. She was willing to put the notion of death-after-death to the test.

  “The lion is coming with us for safekeeping. You have no right to behave this way. You certainly have no right to touch me like that.”

  “Christ,” said the man, excited rather than afraid. “You have fire, baby. With spunk like that, I’m surprised the French lost so many wars.”

  “Not the ones I fought in,” she said.

  “Good grief!” shouted Venerable Pope Pius XII, climbing up onto his chair as Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi and Cecil the lion entered the committee chambers. “Francis, you go too far! We put up with the wolf of Gubbio for far too long, but you’ve crossed the line now!”

  In the Celestial City, everyone was equal (apart from the Almighty) and no one (apart from the Almighty) had power over anyone else. But that didn’t mean the city lacked government. The committee chambers housed the decision-making department of the Celestial City, the ministerial cabinet without whose decisions the city would fall apart. Probably fall apart. Well, maybe struggle a little. Or not. Probably not. Joan had long ago formed the opinion that the Heavenly committee primarily existed to give certain self-important busybodies something to do and keep them out of harm’s way. Nothing she had seen since provided any evidence to the contrary.

  There was a small snort of laughter from the corner.

  “Who’s laughing?” said Pius, casting glances at the lion.

  The Archangel Gabriel, St Thomas Aquinas, Joan and Francis all looked down the table to where Mother Teresa sat, scribing the minutes of their meetings. Her quill scratched across the parchment.

  “Crossed the lion,” she tittered very quietly.

  “If that creature can sit down without harassing any former pontiffs and there are no further interruptions,” said Gabriel sternly, as Pius cautiously got down from his chair, “we should return to item one on the agenda.”