Billy's Monsters

1

Billy was an almost average sixteen year old boy, so he didn’t know much about girls. He knew even less about the girl who staggered into the bus shelter where he was waiting for his ride home. She collapsed, sobbing, against an advert for life-enhancing lipstick.

A dozen panicked thoughts rushed through Billy’s head.

Should I do something? Say something? Why am I staring at her? Stop staring at her! I can’t, I’m paralysed. Look away, you idiot! Give her some space. Maybe she’ll be fine in a minute. Maybe it’s just hay fever. Stay calm. Deep breaths. The bus will be here any second…

Billy didn’t know much about buses either.

The bus failed to arrive in the next few seconds or minutes and the girl continued to sob. Billy shifted his weight from one foot to the other and chewed at his lip. Film and TV told him what he was supposed to say: ‘Are you all right?’ But she wasn’t all right, that was obvious. He ought to skip ahead to ‘is there anything I can do to help?’ Except saying anything now would be weird because he’d kept quiet for so long.

Her sobs were interspersed with curious noises: vuvving as she tried to suck in spittle dribbling from her lips and snurf-burbling as she alternated between sniffing back mucus and blowing bubbles from her nostrils.

She was in dire need of tissues.

That was something Billy could help with. He began searching his pockets. He was sure he had—

The girl wiped her face on a cardigan sleeve. This left silvery trails across the wool and made it look as if her arm had been ravaged by snails. She sniffed loudly. Her face settled into a serene expression; ruddy blotches around her nose and eyes stark against her pale skin. Billy felt relieved. She was going to be okay.

Then she started banging her head against the side of the shelter.

‘Why did I leave her? I’m such a stupid, useless—’

‘Hey, hey, stop that,’ said Billy. ‘I don’t know what’s happened, but I’m sure—’

Bloodshot eyes whipped round and glared at Billy. Everything wrong in the world was suddenly his fault. Then he was forgotten just as abruptly, the girl turning away and whispering to herself.

‘I have to go back for her.’

‘Is someone in trouble?’ asked Billy. ‘Should I call the police?’

She didn’t reply. Instead she got to her feet and ran off, passing the overdue 32X bus in the process.

Another burst of snurf-burbling reached Billy’s ears, but this time it came from his backpack.

‘I don’t think you’re qualified to act as my conscience,’ said Billy in reply, ‘not after what you did to Mrs Bramble’s poodle.’

A dismissive thrurping noise issued from the backpack.

The bus rumbled to a halt by the shelter. The door opened. Billy gestured apologetically to the driver and hurried off after the girl.

She led Billy to a quiet row of townhouses. A hundred years ago wealthy merchants lived here, but now most were given over to the offices of solicitors, dentists and chartered surveyors. The girl climbed a short flight of steps up to a door without a gold plaque alongside and fumbled a key from her cardigan pocket.

Billy reached the door before it clicked shut. He edged it open a crack. Glass lanterns illuminated a wide hallway decorated with floral wallpaper and painted portraits. A staircase climbed to a shadowy summit. The girl ran past the stairs toward a frosted glass door. She turned before reaching it, disappearing off down a side passage.

The backpack chittered tersely.

‘I smell it too,’ replied Billy. ‘Probably wise we didn’t call the police.’

He slipped inside.

Immediately ahead, on either side of the hall, were two open doorways. Billy froze; ready to flee if anyone stepped into view. No one did. The only sound was the girl’s shoes hammering up another set of stairs hidden at the back of the house.

Billy didn’t rush after her. He peered through each doorway. The one on the right revealed a dining room. It contained a large oak table, six chairs and nothing more of interest. On the left was a living room. Fresh flowers stood on a mantelpiece above a dead fireplace. China cups and saucers sat on small tables servicing two armchairs and a settee. The nearest cup was half full of tea. A biscuit lay uneaten on the saucer.

The smell had made Billy uneasy, but the sight of an abandoned custard cream made him properly concerned.

The girl’s thumping footsteps were replaced by muffled curses, then a dull clang.

Billy walked on along the hallway. A sudden tugging came at his left earlobe.

‘What?’ he hissed.

The tugging came again. He turned his head to look at the nearest portrait. The irritated frown on Billy’s face dissolved away and a fascinated smile appeared in its place.

‘It’s a Pikrakua, isn’t it?’

If Billy were an average sixteen year old boy, he would not have recognised the tell-tale signs that this painting was not a painting. He would not have noticed that the dark, varnished wood of the frame had tiny scales forming the grain. He would not have remembered a trip to the National Portrait Gallery where a wizened teacher with more buck teeth than was humanly possible explained that if you looked at Cornelius Johnson’s 1636 portrait of an unknown man from an acute enough angle, you could see that the canvas was in fact a coarse membrane that shimmered in the right light. Most of all, if Billy were an average sixteen year old boy, he would not have known that the subject of this picture was trapped in an unearthly prison where they would be slowly devoured until nothing was left except coloured residue that novices and experts alike would mistake for paint.

Billy’s smile dropped and he took a step back.

The unknown man in Cornelius Johnson’s supposed portrait had been long dead when Billy’s teacher gave its rambling lecture on the hallmarks of the Pikrakua. This latest victim was still fighting against the stiff pose forced upon him. Bulging arteries were visible along the man’s neck, lines of tension squared the jaw and the pleading eyes glistened with tears that could not fall.

He moved on past more portraits, more Pikrakuas, more unfortunate souls dying on canvas.

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Billy. ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

From around the corner and up the back stairs came another clang and a bout of swearing. At least the girl wasn’t lost yet.

2

Scarlett slumped down against the iron door. She didn’t want to start crying again, but her shoulder hurt from trying to barge the door open and she didn’t know what to do next. She buried her face into the crook of one arm and held her breath, trying to keep the upset at bay.

‘Err, excuse me.’

The words hit her like cold water. She wasn’t alone.

Scarlett lowered her arm. Someone stood at the bottom of the stairs. For a moment, she thought it was Nathaniel peering up at her through the gloom, but Nathaniel was all cocky poise, whereas this figure had hunched shoulders and hands raised in apology.

‘Sorry.’ A boy’s voice, not Nathaniel’s oily baritone. ‘I didn’t mean to... I mean... I can go if this is a bad time.’

‘Who are you?’ asked Scarlett.

‘My name’s Billy. I saw you at the bus stop. I was going to offer you some tissues, but—’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Trespassing mostly. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m usually very law-abiding, but from what I’ve seen down here, I’m pretty sure the police can’t help.’

‘Really?’ said Scarlett with a sarcastic sniff. ‘Does that mean you can?’

The boy shrugged. ‘I don’t know what kind of trouble you’ve got, so I don’t know if I can help, but I do know what a D’Courcey Prowler is.’

‘A what?’

‘A D’Courcey Prowler. It’s like a particularly vicious watchdog, only it’s not a dog. And my nose says one of them’s waiting on the other side of that door.’

A brief silence followed. Scarlett caught herself listening for the sound of growling or panting coming through the iron behind her. She sniffed again.

‘Guess it’s a good job the door’s locked.’

‘You sure?’

She would have shown him the bruises on her shoulder by way of proof, but they wouldn’t blossom for another day or two, so for now she resorted to crossing her arms and glaring at him. Billy grinned and jogged up the stairs. Scarlett rose to her feet, ready to fight or run if he tried anything.

‘Sometimes I find it helps to get a second opinion on stuff like this,’ said Billy. ‘Come on, budge out the way. Let me take a look.’

He barely gave her time to budge out the way before he stuck his nose up against the door and peered through the keyhole. She descended a few steps and studied him. His jeans were ill-fitting and cheap, his jacket was dirty and his backpack was stuffed almost to bursting.

‘There’s no point picking the lock if that’s what you’re thinking,’ said Scarlett. ‘It’s got bolts on the other side.’

‘Must be something pretty important up here.’

‘No. Just my sister.’

Billy straightened up and turned around. ‘Older or younger?’

‘Younger.’

‘Hmm, yeah, young girls can be trouble. Iron doors, bolts? No big surprise.’

‘Yet everyone says she’s the nice one.’

‘You seem all right to me.’

‘You don’t know me.’

‘I know you came back for your sister.’

The door clicked. Billy hesitated, smiled, and then turned to wrap fingers around the handle. Scarlett fancied she saw the top flap of his backpack flutter as he did so.

‘Are you sure you want to go on?’ he asked. ‘D’Courcey Prowlers are almost as nasty as Pikrakuas.’

‘What? What’s a pik... rak...? A what?’

‘Just something best avoided unless you know what you’re doing.’

‘Whatever. I need to know my sister’s all right, so if you can—’

Billy opened the door onto a crooked corridor. Fresh brickwork blocked off the front of the house; only the rear was accessible. A naked light-bulb hung from the ceiling. He proceeded with caution, but Scarlett was quick to push past him and stride ahead.

‘Goddammit, woman,’ said Billy, chasing her shadow, ‘do you want to get yourself killed?’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Did I fail to mention the D’Courcey Prowler?’

‘The dog that’s not a dog? Like I’m going to believe a story like that.’

‘Well, I can’t believe women sometimes,’ muttered Billy, ‘but that doesn’t stop them being real.’

Scarlett drew level with a doorway. It opened onto a grimy room. Moonlight spilled in through a barred window. There should have been three guards here playing poker, drinking beer and snacking on fast food. The cards were present, scattered across the table along with the half-devoured remnants of a Chinese takeaway and half a dozen crumpled cans, but the guards were absent.

She moved on before Billy could catch up. Her heart was thumping faster, driven by fear of what she might find up the next flight of stairs.

Something flashed in the corner of her eye.

Scarlett looked up, but it darted away, staying just on the edge of sight, forcing her to spin round, chasing the thing with her gaze.

She couldn’t catch it.

It shot left, right, up, down – teasing her, challenging her to snare one good look. However hard she tried, it always fled to the corner of her eye.

She fell against the wall, suddenly dizzy.

Billy grabbed her by the shoulders and straightened her up.

‘Look at this.’ He held an index finger in front of her nose. ‘Don’t look at anything else. Don’t argue. Just focus on my finger.’

Scarlett stared at the finger while the world spun serenely around it: Billy’s deadly serious face, the dingy corridor, the creature slinking past the bare light-bulb. She wanted to steal a proper look, but Billy waggled his finger to keep her attention.

‘Why does it look like... like I’ve been staring at the sun? It’s all flashing shapes and zigzags.’

‘Some people call them Migraine Dogs,’ replied Billy.

‘I think it’s getting closer.’

‘It is.’

‘And what’ll it do if—?’

‘Just keep watching my finger.’

‘Don’t tell me to keep watching your finger. Tell me—’

The words caught in her throat. It was almost on top of them; a shifting, swirling aberration at the top of her vision. She could feel its hot breath as electric prickling on her face.

‘Focus,’ said Billy.

‘It looks as if it’s going to—’

The creature pounced and Billy whipped his hand away. Scarlett tried to keep the finger in sight and the thing at the edge of her vision was yanked along with it; the pounce becoming a madcap tumble headed straight toward Billy’s swinging fist.

‘Here, drink this,’ said Billy.

Scarlett sat at the guard room table. She looked at the offered glass. It was filled with dregs salvaged from the various beer cans.

‘There is no way I am drinking that.’

‘It’ll take your mind off things.’

‘It’ll make me sick.’

‘Sick is a way of getting your mind off things.’

‘I’d rather you explain that.’

She pointed to the D’Courcey Prowler lying unconscious in the passageway. If you could block out its confusing camouflage of rippling zigzags and strobing squiggles, its appearance was that of a medium-sized dog with a lean, muscular frame, jagged fangs and an over-developed jaw.

Billy looked at the impossible creature and then back at Scarlett, expression blank. He clearly thought the fact it was lying there removed the need for any explanation.

Scarlett huffed frustration and tried again.

‘Since when have things like that been real?’

‘Real? Oh, that’s not real,’ said Billy, brightly. ‘Not really. Well, not entirely. That’s the thing about monsters. Some are real, sure, but many exist only in the mind. Your common or garden D’Courcey Prowler... they’re a bit of both. That’s why you can only ever see them out the corner of your eye right up to the moment they rip your throat out.’

‘Okay, stop explaining,’ said Scarlett, rising from her chair and walking to the door, ‘it only makes you more annoying.’

‘Annoying? Hey, I’m trying to help here. Think I’ve done a pretty good job so far too, but if you’d rather do this on your own...’

Scarlett stopped in the doorway with her back to him. Her shoulders rose as she took a deep breath and then sagged as she turned back to him.

Whereupon she loosed a terrified scream.

Billy thought it was directed at him and was about to protest, when a sixth sense told him to check the window.

There was nothing there, just a mundane view of the terrace behind.

‘But there was something there!’ insisted Scarlett. ‘Just for a second. Something with three eyes. Three huge eyes. They were all green and bloodshot and—’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Billy, hurrying over and raising a hand to try and comfort her without getting closer than six inches. ‘This is the shock. It’s just your mind playing tricks.’

‘But you said monsters were real. And there’s that thing in the hallway...’

‘I know, I know, but you have to trust me on this. There wasn’t anything at the window. It was just... a shadow. Of some trees. Or the moon. Or something. Now, come on, we’re supposed to be finding your sister.’

He hurried out along the passageway. Scarlett trailed after him.

‘That wasn’t convincing.’

‘What?’ asked Billy.

‘Everything you just said.’

‘Sure it was.’

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Rubbish. You’re just one of those sceptical, cynical types. I bet you wouldn’t believe in your own nose if it didn’t stare back at you from the mirror every morning. Now where are we supposed to be going?’

‘Are you saying my nose is big?’ Scarlett pushed him aside and led the way to a shadowy alcove containing a tightly-wound spiral staircase.

‘What? No! Where did you even...? We were talking about monsters, right?’

‘Are you calling me a monster now?’

‘How did this become all about you? For Pete’s sake, woman, I only—’

‘Did you just ‘woman’ me again?’

‘I’m concentrating on climbing these stairs now. They’re very steep and twisty. Can’t answer questions.’

‘Boys,’ muttered Scarlett.

When they finally reached the top and stepped out onto the next floor, their bickering stopped.

Scarlett’s sister had been kept in the small room at the top of the house. It contained a small bed, some dolls and a bookcase of dog-eared titles salvaged from a charity shop. Her clothes were kept in an old beige suitcase. The reinforced door was locked and bolted from the outside. But that hadn’t stopped it being torn from its hinges. The bed was now cleaved in half. The bookcase was smashed flat and its books dismembered. Hundreds of pages now fluttered loose across the dusty carpet.

Scarlett staggered forward through the carnage. She fell to her knees by the suitcase. Thankfully it remained intact.

Billy joined her, walking slowly, looking around in a daze. The damage was not confined to the furnishings. Two walls and most of the roof were gone, ripped open to reveal a cloudy night’s sky.

Scarlett shut her eyes tight and held her breath to stop the tears coming again. Only when her head began to feel light and dots flashed behind her eyelids did she dare to speak.

‘You’re not annoying,’ she managed.

A chilling, unnatural cry sounded in the distance.

‘It’s okay,’ replied Billy, ‘we’ve got her scent.’

3

When Scarlett and Hester were together, folk always commented on how nice and quiet Hester was. They never asked her why.

She sat quietly now, despite the commotion around her. Men in suit and tails ushered guests wearing equally formal attire to ranks of waiting chairs. A young woman in a satiny peach dress stood stiffly by the double doors, holding an animated conversation with an earpiece discretely hidden by curls of coiffured hair. None of these people showed any appreciation for the majesty of their surroundings. The large hall possessed a ceiling dominated by a great, glass dome. An intricate mosaic covered the floor. Pristine white walls were sullied by architectural flourishes with names Hester would have thought gibberish: pilasters; corbels; there were even some fancy volutes. Trailing wires criss-crossed the hall, connecting power sockets, video cameras, speakers and a battery of multi-coloured lights. These all served to cast a microphone as the centrepiece of proceedings.

The best man’s attempt to conduct a sound check was interrupted by a question.

‘Nathaniel, is she okay?’

He glared at an usher who was twitching an eyebrow in Hester’s direction.

‘Don’t worry about her, she always looks like that. Not exactly all there, if you know what I mean.’

Hester let their words drift past her without giving them much thought. Thinking too loudly brought unwelcome attention.

‘Has the Reverend seen her yet?’

‘No, and he won’t be seeing her until the ceremony.’

‘But how can he be sure—?’

‘Because, Johnny, people far smarter than you have spent a lot of time and money guaranteeing this day will be perfect. You check the mic. I’m going to make sure our extra security has turned up.’

Johnny was left alone on stage with Hester. The little girl sat in the middle of a circle drawn in goat’s blood. Eldritch symbols glowed around her. Conventional steel chains bound her wrists and ankles.

‘Don’t worry,’ the man whispered as he squatted down in front of her. ‘It’ll be over soon.’

Hester sat perfectly still as he checked her restraints. She didn’t worry about what might be happening soon, because she already knew it was too late. She hadn’t been quiet enough.

Johnny stood up, satisfied. The girl at his feet gazed intently at the great glass dome above. He didn’t try to work out why. She was strange, simple as that. He began the sound check without looking up. If he had, he would have seen three monstrous green eyes staring down at him.

Billy and Scarlett darted from a side street to hide behind a parked car.

‘How do you know she’s in there?’ asked Scarlett.

Across the road was a hotel. Baskets of flowers hung between grand windows shaped differently for each of the building’s five storeys. Billy’s eyes flicked up to the roof. A black shape ghosted between the clusters of chimneys.

‘Call it a hunch,’ he replied.

‘Bad posture isn’t an answer.’

‘Then you’ll just have to trust me.’

‘No, I’ll tolerate you long enough to find out if you’re right,’ she said, while ruing her lack of alternatives.

The hotel had a revolving front door of glass and gold. It was flanked by two large security men and a couple of decorative potted plants.

‘If she is in there,’ said Scarlett, ‘how do we get her out?’

‘The guards shouldn’t be a problem,’ replied Billy, ‘but those plants might be.’

‘Hay fever? Or more monsters?’

‘Could be monsters. Could be Hydraenus Nivicus, also known as the Lesser Man-Eating Shrub. Hard to tell from this distance.’

‘Perhaps you should go take a closer look.’

‘The Lesser Man-Eating Shrub can lop a man’s head off from twenty paces; this is quite close enough, thank-you. I might go take a look round the back.’

Billy moved to the front wing of the car and prepared to make a run for it.

‘And I do what while you’re doing that?’ asked Scarlett.

‘You wait here.’

Scarlett folded her arms. ‘And...?’

‘And... if I’m not back in ten minutes, call the police.’

‘You really think—?’ She didn’t bother to finish the question. Billy took the opportunity to run as a limousine pulled up in front of the hotel. ‘You watch too many movies, you know that?’

He threw Scarlett a perplexed glance over his shoulder and nearly stumbled in the middle of the road. He touched a hand to the ground to right himself as a car sped past, horn honking angrily.

Billy replied with a crude gesture before noticing he’d drawn attention. The security guards stared at him suspiciously. The elderly couple who’d just climbed out of the limousine stared disapprovingly. The potted plants didn’t have eyes, so they couldn’t stare, but they quivered in a way Billy considered malevolent.

He ducked his head down and ran on, trying hard to look like a careless teenager who didn’t know his green cross code. He reached the pavement and hurried away from the hotel, returning only when eyes were no longer on his back.

‘Honestly, how can you watch too many movies?’ muttered Billy, entering the alleyway. Dumpsters lurked in the shadows. The few windows on this side of the hotel were small and dark.

A wibbling reply from his backpack.

‘Okay, fair point,’ conceded Billy. ‘Eventually you’ll run out of the ones with explosions and then they’ll get boring, but I haven’t got to those movies, so I can’t have watched too many and that makes what she said back there bang out of order.’

This prompted a rasping belch.

‘What?’

Another rasping belch.

‘As if she meant that.’

Three plops and a mewling noise.

‘And if I do talk in clichés, it’s only because they’re direct and to the point.’ Billy turned a corner and found himself at a dead-end. ‘I was expecting a fire escape. Guess that must be round the other side.’

A rumbling growl from his backpack.

‘Of course I didn’t do it deliberately, but we do need to get up there.’

Grievous huffing coincided with the top of Billy’s backpack flipping open. A thin purple tongue shot out and upwards. It reached the fifth storey in less than a second and wrapped a prehensile tip around a sturdy piece of masonry.

‘Up, up and away!’ cried Billy, reaching a fist into the air.

Nothing happened.

Billy turned his head slightly.

‘What now?’

The thing in his backpack spluttered a brief reply.

‘Oh come on!’ protested Billy. ‘You can’t ban me from using clichés, that—’

Billy was yanked off his feet, arms and legs flailing wildly while his bag hauled him skyward. Seconds later, he was deposited unceremoniously on the roof of the hotel and the purple tongue was once again hidden away beneath the backpack flap.

‘That was just juvenile,’ said Billy, climbing to his feet and dusting himself off.

He looked around. Narrow paths ran between steeply angled rooftops and towering chimney stacks. A short distance away, light shone up through a large glass dome. Billy decided to start his investigations there. He didn’t get very far. Only a few paces into the maze of pitched slates, he came across a congealed mess of bones and entrails.

He crouched down and picked up a fragment of what looked like rib. Turning it on end revealed a honeycomb cross-section.

‘Not human then.’ He dropped the slimy bone and wiped his fingers on his jacket. ‘Given the white blood, probably a gargoyle of the Chotera genus. Came across something big by the looks of it. We’ve got claw marks over there and there, but it’d take some serious bludgeoning to—’

A tentacle tugging on his earlobe prompted Billy to look round into the unblinking stare of three great green eyes.

Billy was an idiot. Stay here? Really?

Scarlet eyed the hotel entrance. Normally anyone would be able to walk in, but those security guards were clearly there to keep undesirables out. Getting past them wouldn’t be the trivial task Billy made it out to be. And what if his hunch was wrong? What if Hester was someplace else entirely?

That last thought gnawed away at Scarlett until she shoved it to the back of her mind and resolved to get inside the hotel by any means necessary. Charming her way in didn’t seem a good bet given her current foul mood, so she needed a distraction.

She didn’t have to wait long for one to turn up.

It arrived with a rumble of diesel. A luxury coach rolled to a halt on the opposite side of the road. The high sides and darkened windows blocked her view of the hotel entrance. A medieval crest was painted in gold above the front wheel arch. The sight of it caused Scarlett to hunker back down behind the car she was using as cover.

She looked down the street at a phone box. Her imagination was already there, dialling 999 and asking for the police.

Muffled cries from across the street were followed by metal scraping against concrete and then a dull squelch.

Scarlett didn’t move.

BANG!

The sound rang in her ears as she scrambled clear. A glance back showed the car roof had collapsed under the impact of a potted plant. More alarming was the shrub’s... mouth? It was formed by leaves and filled with shining black thorns. Two green tendrils lolled out onto the pavement and continued to twitch, even as the rest of the thing remained still.

Scarlett took a couple of deep breaths. The police couldn’t help with this.

She looked across the street. No further noises, no more movement. She ran out toward the coach.

4

‘Look, I’m not telling you off,’ said Billy, ‘I just want to know what happened.’

Three monstrous green eyes blinked sheepishly before turning their gaze to the remains of the gargoyle. The hulking mass of not-quite-fur produced a set of claws that traced a rapid series of pictures in the air. Once done, the claws retreated out of sight and the mass gave a mild shrug.

‘Yeah, it’s always the other guy what starts it,’ muttered Billy.

The beast groaned and hung its head, then waved a claw over there and over there.

‘I see. It was other guys. Fine. Okay. Gargoyles can be nasty pieces of work. You did what you had to do.’ Billy sighed. ‘Now, did you find her?’

From the moment the Reverend first addressed the wedding congregation, all eyes dutifully ignored the young girl chained to the pentacle on stage. Poems were read, dedications given and finally the bride and groom were joined together in holy matrimony. They kissed. A mother in the audience began to cry.

‘A joyous union,’ declared the Reverend, ‘that no man ought put asunder were this world pure under the eyes of God, but as all plane-spoken believers know, this world is not pure. It does challenge and test and connive in the wickedest of ways to undermine even a thing as steadfast and virtuous as love. This truth leads so many to fail, yet here, today, God does not forsake us. He sends an angel to watch over our devoted couple; a trusted guardian who shall protect their love with tooth and with claw and unto the ends of the earth.’

The Reverend respectfully lowered his head to the audience and then began to walk around the pentacle, throwing powder over Hester and chanting as he did so. The Bride looked round. She was beaming and beautiful in her virginal white dress. She gave Hester an encouraging thumbs up.

Hester was not encouraged. She was scared. She always tried to keep quiet so they would not hear, but now this man in black was calling to them. She could feel their approach as pressure building on the sides of her skull. They wanted to get in and the people here wanted to help them.

All eyes were on Hester now. The tearful mother held a handkerchief to her mouth. Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath.

The Reverend passed in front of Hester. She looked up at him. His lips were busy twisting themselves around the words of an alien language. His brow was furrowed in concentration. Rather than spare her a glance, he threw a handful of dust in her face and walked on.

Hester knew better than to shout or cry. It never helped. Nothing did.

Above, the monstrous green eyes stared down from the glass dome, promising a final end to Hester’s cherished quiet. Except... the monster had a boy with him and that wasn’t at all how it was supposed to go.

Billy looked down through the dome.

‘I reckon we’ve got about six minutes before—’

He was interrupted by a snarp from his backpack.

‘But that’s an Osfirenisch-Baylor summoning,’ protested Billy. ‘There’s another five minutes of inter-dimensional prestidigitation after the chanting’s done. See, I was paying attention when—’

The next interruption was a phnock.

‘Oh,’ said Billy after a moment’s pause. ‘I didn’t see the ceraunoscopic curlicues in the pentagram. That means it’s the Kallakuri variation, doesn’t it?’

A snuffled confirmation from his backpack.

Billy took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

‘If we do this quick, maybe no one’ll see...’ He didn’t need a sideways glance to know his three-eyed companion was trembling. ‘We’ll save the girl. You take out the lights and cameras.’

The beast’s claws rapped a questioning ditty on the glass.

‘No, leave the people alone. We’ll just have to pray no one believes them. On a count of three. One—’

And suddenly the lights went out in the room below.

Hester was aware of a large room, full of people one moment and the next moment, the only people she could see were the Reverend and the bride and groom; each lit by the faint green glow of the pentagram’s eldritch symbols. The rest of the hall was a black void beneath the moonlit dome.

‘Danny...?’ whispered the bride.

‘It’s okay,’ he told her. ‘The ritual’s nearly done and then nothing can touch us.’

The congregation began muttering amongst themselves. Shining lights appeared in the dark as folk turned to their mobile phones for reassurance.

‘Johnny!’ shouted a commanding voice. ‘Find the manager and find out what the hell’s going on.’

Hester heard shoes running across the polished floor. They skidded to a halt. A door handle turned.

That was their cue; the only invitation Hester’s nightmares needed to fill the room with a cacophony of chaos.

Billy watched a great force blast a path across the centre of the room, sending two splintered doors and hapless bodies spiralling clear. Things then followed; things that sent the light of mobile phones scattering in all directions and roared and snarled and hissed in hideous ways that brought a grim smile to Billy’s face.

‘That makes life much simpler. Let’s go.’

Three-Eyes cannon-balled down through the dome, carrying a shower of glassy shards down with him. Within seconds of the beast landing, the menagerie’s symphony of roaring, snarling and hissing added a chorus of crunching bone, tearing flesh and gleeful grunting.

Billy jumped a few seconds after that, the purple tongue lashing out from his backpack and gaining purchase on one of the dome’s ribs. He swung across the hall, holding his feet clear of the writhing shadows below.

The tongue released and recoiled into the backpack, leaving Billy to land deftly on the stage.

He was promptly attacked by the groom, who clubbed him across the back of the head with his fists before trying to kick him in the face. The groom’s polished shoe never made contact. A turquoise pincer popped out of the backpack and clamped onto the shiny leather. This surprised the groom marginally less than being flung upside down into the nearest wall.

Billy scrambled to his feet.

The bride glared at him.

‘We just wanted to be happy,’ she said.

Billy felt he should say something, but he was no better at dealing with distress than he was an hour ago, so turned his attention to the Reverend instead. The clergyman was hurrying to complete his invocation. The dust he’d thrown into the pentacle was rising up as a cloud of glistening particles that began swirling round faster and faster...

Billy dropped to his knees and scrambled over to the pentagram.

The little girl in chains watched on blankly as the Reverend motioned urgently with his head. The bride grabbed Billy’s neck. She tried to