Colvenhoof: Satan's Shorts (Clovenhoof Anthology) Read online

  “I don’t object to the plays,” said St Nicholas.

  “- and then, on that magical night, all the children go to bed early, even though they’re too excited to sleep, and wait for that moment when the sleigh comes and Sa-“

  “Don’t!” snapped St Nicholas.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “I know. I don’t like that name. Or any of the names. I am not that fat horrible pagan spirit.”

  “You’re not fat,” said Joan.

  “No, that’s not my point.”

  “Although you have a lovely white beard and red really suits you.”

  “Joan. I am many things. I am a symbol of charity. I did indeed devote my life to gift giving and helping the less fortunate. I am the patron saint of children, archers, thieves –“

  “Did not know that.”

  “- as well as the patron saint of moneylenders and pawnbrokers –“

  “Well, that is very Christmassy.”

  “ – but I am not him. Is that clear?”

  “As crystal,” said Joan. “Sorry. I’m just glad you agreed to come with me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Joan looked up but there was no sun or moon in this no man’s land, just an all-encompassing greyness that swirled around them, above and below. The Celestial City was a long way behind them.

  “The Krampus is late,” she said.

  “Of course he is,” said St Nicholas. “I remember this place when it was full of unbaptised children.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Joan nodding in recollection. “What happened to them?”

  “The amnesty. They’ve all been transferred to the Swedenborg crèches. Never had children myself.”

  “No, me neither.”

  “I do like them though.”

  “You rescued three lads from a butcher once, didn’t you?” she said.

  “That’s right. That was me. 323AD.”

  “I forget. He was going to chop them up and sell them off as ham or something?”

  The saint shook his head.

  “He’d already done the foul deed. Killed them, butchered their bodies and left the bits in a barrel to cure.”

  “And this story has a happy ending?” said Joan, a look of concern on her face.

  “I prayed over their remains and, by the Almighty’s power, the little lads leapt out, whole and healthy.”

  “And screaming, I should imagine.”

  “They were remarkably sanguine about the entire thing,” said St Nicholas.

  “That’s pretty impressive, Nick.”

  “A bit showy in my own opinion. One does not need miracles to do the Lord’s work. My best work was the giving of gifts of gold to three unmarried daughters. You know that one?”

  “Think so,” said Joan. “The father was too poor to pay dowries to any man so they were destined to become prostitutes.”

  “That’s right. So, on three successive nights, I threw a bag of gold coins in through the man’s window. One bag for each daughter. Except, on the third night he was expecting me and was looking out of the window, so I had to climb onto the roof and drop it down the chimney.”

  “Oh, I see! Just like Sa-“

  “Don’t! I told you.”

  “Sorry. It was good work. A great example to the faithful and you saved those women from a life of wickedness.”

  St Nicholas coughed uncomfortably.

  “You did stop them becoming prostitutes, didn’t you?” she asked.

  He grimaced.

  “I stopped them becoming poor prostitutes,” he said.

  “Oh, well, you tried,” said Joan brightly and then suddenly stiffened. “Do you hear that?”

  “I can smell that,” said St Nicholas. “It’s him.”

  There was the muffled yet echoing clip-clop of hooves on rock and a foetid stench: rank and animalistic but with a foul sulphurous edge. It smelled like a wet sheep rolled in rotten eggs.

  The Krampus stepped out of the mist, a smaller demon carrying a huge sack at its side.

  “Put it down there, Rutspud,” rasped the Krampus, struggling to articulate around its enormous tongue.

  “Yes, sir,” said the demon obediently.

  The Krampus was an eight-foot tall goat man but that simple description could not hope to encapsulate the utter nastiness of this demon. From his yellow eyes to his yellow fangs, from his long questing tongue to the clanking chains that hung from his arms, the Krampus was a deliberate affront to everything that was pleasant and cosy and safe. Joan was amazed that people used to let this thing into their homes on Christmas Eve…

  “You’re late, Krampus,” said Joan and realised her grip on her sword had tightened.

  “Tough titties, Joan,” said the Krampus. “Long time no see, Santa.”

  “You don’t know me,” said St Nicholas in restrained irritation.

  “Sure I do. Europe. The Middle Ages. We were the greatest double act since Samson and Delilah.”

  “Double act?” spat St Nicholas.

  “Come on, Santa,” said the Krampus and then turned to his demon underling. “You should have seen us, Rutspud. Rat-a-tat-tat on the door on a winter’s night. In we’d go. Santa here would give presents to all the nice kiddy-winks and I would stuff all the naughty ones in my basket. Lots of naughty children.”

  “It must have been a big basket, sir,” said Rutspud.

  “No. Not at all,” said the Krampus. “But I do have big powerful hands.”

  St Nicholas shook his head in disgust.

  “Please, Joan, let us get this over with.”

  Joan pulled a scroll from within the plates of her armour and unrolled it.

  “According to the terms of the Inferno-Celestial Accord of two thousand and ten,” she read, “we are here to exchange Christmas care packages. One sack to be given from Heaven to Hell and one sack of equal size and weight from Hell to Heaven.”

  The Krampus grabbed the neck of Hell’s sack and thrust it out. Warily, St Nicholas picked up Heaven’s sack and stepped forward to meet him. The lofty saint and the shaggy demon eyed each other for a long second and then passed their burdens over. St Nicholas closed his eyes as he assessed the weight of Hell’s offering. The Krampus licked his own eyeball and jiggled Heaven’s gift thoughtfully.

  “Close enough,” said St Nicholas sourly.

  “It’ll do,” conceded the Krampus. “No books of scripture this time?”

  “No curses or hexes?” replied Joan.

  “Them’s the rules,” said the Krampus with a grin. “You know, shiny tits, I look forward to this every year. You have no idea how grateful I am.”

  “Glad to provide you with some amusement,” she said with a forced smile.

  This whole Christmas present venture had indeed been Joan’s idea. It had started as a simple notion, to get the residents of the Celestial City to send cards and letters of consolation and love to the damned of Hell at that most special time of year. It was a simple plan and one with only two barriers, to wit, Heaven and Hell.

  Heaven might have been the realm of charity and forgiveness. However, it also had a stranglehold on righteousness and sermonising and the first batch of cards that came in response to Joan’s appeal to the blessed faithful had more than an ounce of snobbery, disdain and schadenfreude about them. Joan had to send most of them back and most of the second wave too, and the third… until she was compelled to provide a set of strict guidelines for submissions.

  Hell’s problem, naturally, was that they had no interest in accepting anything that might make the plight of the damned any less wretched. What was in it for them? Of course, if Hell could reciprocate, exchanging the consoling gifts of Heaven for the disturbing gifts of Hell then that would be another matter entirely. The enterprise then became one of bargaining, ensuring that the gifts were of equal value, weight for weight, happiness for grief, comfort and joy for discomfort and misery. Heaven’s gifts were destined for the most wretched of the damned. Hell’s gifts were delivered to
members of the blessed dead who signed up to the scheme for the sake of others.

  There had been mistakes in the those early exchanges. Icons, relics and works of scripture, both holy and diabolical were simply a no-no. Like matter and anti-matter, they simply could not exist in the opposing realm. There had been explosions, generally deemed horrific by Heaven and not horrific enough by Hell. It also transpired that while Heaven ran on alternating current for its electricity supplies, Hell had taken up with direct current. That had proved disappointing in the year that Heaven sent all those fridge freezers in exchange for Hell’s karaoke machines.

  The Krampus opened Heaven’s sack and removed a sample present. He snipped away the silver bow with a razor-sharp claw.

  “Let’s see what shite you’ve given us this year. Ah, the usual. Water. Bandages. Prescription painkillers. Oh, look. The Little Book of Calm.”

  “You should read it,” said St Nicholas, hesitating in opening one of Hell’s packages. It was wrapped in blood-spattered newspaper and tied with what might have been a length of intestine.

  “You really want to open that one?” said the Krampus.

  “Something to hide?” said St Nicholas with false bravado and peered inside.

  He regarded the contents critically.

  “The old favourites. A parasitic wasp. Ebola flavoured chocolate. A Richard Dawkins book. And a fresh human stool.”

  “The traditional Christmas turd,” agreed the Krampus.

  “And what’s this?”

  St Nicholas pulled out a square sided box covered with an arrangement of coloured tiles.

  “A Rubik’s Cube,” said the Krampus. “It’s a puzzle.”

  “And it explodes when you complete it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s covered in contact poison?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem particularly evil.”

  “I know. That’s the beauty of it.”

  “So, are we happy?” asked Joan.

  “Hell is never happy,” muttered the demon, Rutspud.

  Krampus shrugged and deftly resealed the present.

  “Oh, you’ve dropped something,” said Joan, pointing to a small rectangle of paper drifting down from the Krampus’s hand.

  The beastly demon snatched it out of the air.

  “What is it?” he growled, tongue flicking.

  “We’re putting them in every package this year,” said Joan.

  The Krampus held it at arm’s length to read the small writing.

  “Question: Why is a Christmas tree like a Roman Catholic Priest?” He frowned. “Answer: They both have ornamental balls.”

  Rutspud sniggered. The Krampus re-read the joke, his goaty lips mouthing silently, and then gave a low, throaty laugh.

  “Good one,” he said, “I’ll have to tell the boys that.”

  Joan gave St Nicholas an arch look.

  “Told you they’d like the Christmas cracker jokes,” she said.

  The Krampus flung the parcel back in the sack and tossed it to Rutspud.

  “Until next year. Santa. Joan.”

  The Krampus strode off in the general direction of Hell, with his minion tottering in his wake. There was a chuckle from the mists.

  “Balls,” the Krampus laughed to himself, and was gone.

  St Nicholas retied the ribbon of gut, put the present back in the sack and hoisted the whole thing onto his shoulder.

  “I can’t stand that creature,” he said.

  “It’s done now,” said Joan. “And we’ve given Hell a few laughs. A masterstroke even though I do say so myself.”

  Joan led the way through the mists of Limbo towards the Celestial City.

  “So, tell me. Back in the day, did you and the Krampus really do that?”

  “What?” said St Nicholas.

  “The old good cop, bad cop routine. Carrot and stick.”

  St Nicholas sniffed haughtily.

  “Times were different then.”

  “You did do it!”

  “You can’t judge me by modern standards.”

  “Hey, I’m not judging.”

  St Nicholas sighed.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said.

  “It’s not that,” he said. “It’s that joke. Ornamental balls?”

  “What about it?”

  “I don’t get it,” said St Nicholas.

  Joan smiled.

  “Nope. Me neither. Heaven’s this way.”

  Detritus at the Church Fete

  Detritus patted down the pockets of the clothes he was wearing. It appeared that he was undercover. His outfit was rather bland. Brown canvas trousers and a plain cotton shirt. He wondered briefly if he was to be on demon duty at Marks and Spencer, making sure that the clothes were hung on hangers declaring the wrong size and mixing up the pairs of shoes. That was a sought-after gig, nice and easy. He glanced at his right hand. At least he had a pitchfork. One of the modern, folding types. Sweet.

  He found a card in one of his pockets. He sighed. This was new.

  Demon: Detritus

  Mission: Your goal is to disrupt the fund raising efforts of individual churches, and make sure they can’t afford to refurbish the buildings.

  Stretch goal: Causing misery amongst parishioners as you achieve your main goal.

  Special power: You cannot lose at Tombola.

  Detritus raised an eyebrow at his special power. He had no idea what Tombola was. He would need to look that up.

  Two days later he strolled onto the vicarage lawn at St Oswalds. It was a beautiful day. Why couldn’t he have a special power to disrupt the weather? That would be the fastest way to de-rail a church fete. Never mind, he would make sure that this fete made no money at all. Ideally he would see them make a loss!

  Events were just getting started. Stalls lined the lawn, and in the centre was a roped-off area to be used for events. A large marquee labelled beer tent was already proving popular, and another marquee held displays of garden produce and baking for judging later on. There was a children’s play area, and Detritus decided to start there. A quick flick of his pitchfork and the bouncy castle sagged and deflated. He repeated the same manoeuvre to take out the paddling pool on the hook-a-duck stall. As the side wall collapsed, the water flowed over the top and the ducks bobbed briefly on a small river and came to rest on the grass. He would come back in a minute and plaster candy floss onto some of the table-top games.

  He decided to test his special power. He’d researched Tombola, and it was a straightforward game of chance. You would buy one or more tickets from a mixed-up barrel, and if your ticket matched a labelled up prize, then it was yours. He had seen much debate on the subject. There was an implied rule that said you would have a one in ten chance of winning if “all tickets ending in a zero were winners” but of course, there was nothing at all to stop the unscrupulous and underhand practice of adding extra tickets ending in the other digits. He had nodded in approval at that. Sowing the seeds of suspicion and mistrust? Some demon had done well to invent this fiendish game.

  There were multiple tombolas. He started at the general tombola and queued behind some eager children who were murmuring to each other in admiration at the top prizes of large stuffed animals. The four who were ahead of him were disappointed to win nothing. When it was his turn he bought ten tickets. He unwrapped each one to reveal a ticket ending in zero. The first three made the lady behind the stall chuckle with admiration. After that she started double-checking the serial numbers on the tickets and sighing theatrically.

  “Would you like a carrier bag?” she asked.

  He nodded, and wondered how big a carrier bag she might have, as he had won three stuffed toys which were each the size of a Labrador. She wordlessly handed him a tiny, ripped carrier bag and turned her attention to the next customer.

  He dragged his haul across the grass to where he saw a wheelbarrow. He loaded up, but before he moved on to the next tombola he made a quick d
iversion into the adjacent garden where he’d previously spotted a wasps’ nest in the back of a privet hedge. He gave it a vigorous poke with his pitchfork, breaking the nest apart, then he scampered away back to the fete. The marquee with the baking was still fairly quiet, so he was able to access the jam display without attracting attention. Once there was a good, thick coating of jam around the back of each table he returned to his wheelbarrow and moved on to the bottle tombola. He bought enough tickets to ensure that no prizes remained and loaded up the wheelbarrow with his winnings.

  A small girl appeared at his side.

  “I'm Annabel. Can I have the teddy please?” she lisped.

  “No,” Detritus replied.

  “What are you going to do with all of those toys?” asked Annabel. “My mommy says that the Christian thing to do is to share our things.”

  “Your mommy might be right,” said Detritus. “Which is why I’m keeping them all.”

  “You’re a demon aren’t you?” said Annabel.

  Detritus whirled to face her.

  “What?” he hissed. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

  “I saw you using your pitchfork,” she said, “and you look like a demon.”

  “Everyone knows that children have over-active imaginations, so don’t bother trying to tell any grown-ups,” said Detritus. “Now scram. I’ve got work to do.”

  She ran across the lawn to join a group of children, glancing back once or twice. The dog show was about to begin. There was some disruption caused by a sudden swarm of wasps, but the dog owners were battling on and trotted around the circuit with their animals.

  Detritus took the ultrasonic dog trainer from his pocket and pressed the button. The dogs reacted instantly. Some of them dropped to the ground and whined while others jerked free of their owners and ran towards Detritus. He walked briskly towards the produce marquee, opening a fresh packet of dog treats as he went.

  He targetted a red setter with a clearly boisterous nature, and waved a treat at it.

  "Come on then! You can have this if you're good."

  He waited until the dog was focussed on the treat and then tossed it onto the table with the cakes. He repeated the same technique with some other dogs, throwing handfuls of treats as they caught on to the game. They leaped and scrambled in amongst the cakes, tipping them off display stands and skidding through the remains.