Timothy Williams The Infernal Shadow (The Timothy Williams Saga Book 2), page 11
Timothy raised an eyebrow.
‘But here he stands, making a prat of himself. Another convincing performance from the demonic theatrics society. These demons have got some nerve!’ According to Rupert’s source, Mr Warbler’s injuries ― multiple fractures in both femurs ― became horribly infected, with the resulting complications concluding with the removal of his legs.
‘It seems demons are born for the theatre,’ remarked George watching Mr Warbler cavort enthusiastically across the stage like a court jester.
Mr Trumpton wasn’t finished. The acting headmaster began introducing a string of new teachers: Mr Grey, Mrs Mangler, Mrs Wrathburger, Mr Blight, Mr Grimstein, and last but by no means least, Mr Vaden ― all as bleak as midwinter and as grim as the grave.
With each announcement, Timothy’s spirits sank ever lower. Each teacher equalled another demon to face, another enemy to defeat. Lucifer wanted Underwood Upper for his own. Well, pledged Timothy, he’s not going to get it without a fight. Not for the first time, Timothy felt for the pendant only to discover that it wasn’t there. He missed the reassuring warmth of the Morning Star beneath his shirt. He almost felt naked without it. The silver bracelet clasped around his left wrist didn’t feel the same. It felt cold against his skin. Timothy only hoped the device would do its job when the time came.
After assembly ended, Timothy and his friends waited for the theatre to empty before committing themselves to the exit. Outside in the foyer, bright sunlight welcomed them but barring their way to freedom and spoiling for a fight was the very hairy Mrs Gruff and her new school prefects.
‘Look who we have here,’ growled the new deputy head, ‘the chosen whelp.’ Victoria, Emilia and both Sparrow brothers sniggered contemptuously.
The gang prepared themselves for the expected brawl: Timothy narrowed his grey eyes, Sigrid and Gunda cracked their knuckles, the Daves clenched their fists, Rupert stuck his fingers up and George passed wind from his backside that sounded just like a toothless crone attempting to whistle. ‘Oops. Sorry about that. It just slipped out.’
‘You’re a disgrace. I could rip you all to pieces where you stand,’ stated Mrs Gruff. ‘Without your magic necklace, you’re nothing.’
‘It’s a pity my mum didn’t put you down when she had the chance,’ announced Rupert. He had good reason to hold a grudge against Mrs Gruff. His family and the PE teacher had history. ‘Next time, I’ll make sure you don’t get back up.’
Mrs Gruff snarled. ‘Your pathetic mother will get what’s coming to her soon enough. You all will.’ Mrs Gruff and her prefects glared with disdain.
Rupert stepped forward. ‘Why, you hairy―’
Timothy stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t, Rup. She’s not worth it.’
Appearing from the theatre, Miss May interrupted the kerfuffle before the confrontation escalated out of hand. ‘What’s going on out here?’ she enquired, trying her utmost to carry some authority. ‘Why aren’t you students on your way to your lessons?’ With hands-on-hips, she eyed Timothy and his friends with false warning. ‘Now off with you before I put you all in detention.’
Mrs Gruff snorted. Begrudgingly, she moved aside to allow Miss May and her students past. Once safely outside, Miss May let out a huge sigh of relief. ‘This is going to be a challenge,’ she said, ‘and I really don’t think us being here is a good idea.’
Timothy agreed unreservedly, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
Later that evening…
A streak of scorching red fire roared the length of the corridor. Wilfred flung himself around a corner. Hellfire tore past him, exploding against the opposite wall. The angel ducked away from the heat and flame. He poked his head into the passageway. There were three of them: Grey, Blight and Grimstein. All among Trumpton’s new brood of demonic teachers.
Giving them a blast of angel light, Wilfred retreated. He sprinted down the next corridor. Halfway, others emerged to block his path: Vaden, Mangler and Wrathburger. Wilfred spun. Grey, Blight and Grimstein drew near. Nowhere to run.
Raising both hands, Wilfred conjured shields of golden energy. At once, these shimmering barriers were deflecting bouts of hellfire sent shrieking from both ends of the passage. Wilfred turned to face the blank wall, and with a glaring pulse of white light cast from his chest, he punched a hole clean through the board and plaster. Leaping through the new opening, the angel left behind a corridor burning in hellfire.
Scrambling over upturned tables and smouldering chairs, Wilfred crossed Madame Moineau’s broken classroom in a frenzy. Reaching the other side, he pulled open the door and was out into another corridor. Shouts echoed from behind. His pursuers were on his tail again. Wilfred rushed the length of the passage. Locating the north stairwell, he descended the steps taking four at a time before bursting through the fire doors at the bottom. He hurried through the ground floor, hugging the walls toward the exit.
Cautiously, Wilfred edged himself out into the open lobby. ‘Damn,’ he cursed. Gruff and her prefects guarded the main entrance. Wilfred slunk back into the shadows. They hadn’t seen him. He contemplated fighting his way out. Gruff was only one demon, but Wilfred had noticed what the new deputy head now wore on her left hand: a bloodstone ring to enhance her power.
Wilfred retraced his steps, but noise ahead stopped him in his tracks. An adjacent door offered sanctuary. He hurried across the width of the passage and slipped quietly into the library, where he hunkered between the aisles. Muffled footsteps accompanied by incoherent mumblings drifted past the library windows. Wilfred remained crouched on the floor, his mind racing. He needed time to think.
After the pupils had gone home at the end of the school day, Wilfred had stayed behind. He’d been eager to know what Trumpton was up to. However, the new headmaster had other ideas. Wilfred’s spying mission had swiftly turned into an exercise in survival. Trumpton ― otherwise known as Asmodean: demon prince of Hell ― was on the hunt and the angel had no choice but to run. To stay and fight was suicide.
Inside the library, Wilfred detected a flutter of movement at the edge of his vision. There’s someone else in here. Listening and watching for the slightest disturbance, he slowly got to his feet. In a blur, something impossibly quick dashed the length of the adjacent aisle. Wilfred twisted around to see, but whoever it was had already vanished. ‘Show yourself!’
Striking from the shadows as fast and as deadly as a praying mantis, the librarian was on him. Fishwick latched onto the angel’s back, digging her black talons deep into the flesh of his shoulders. She opened her repulsive lips and moved close to sink her extended incisors into his throat. Wilfred winced in pain, but before the demon librarian’s teeth clamped onto his neck, the angel unfurled his hidden wings. Fishwick’s scrawny body was catapulted backwards. Paperbacks and hardbacks toppled onto her from above. Struggling from amongst the fallen tomes, she scrambled upright, but creaking and groaning, the shelving behind suddenly crashed down to bury her beneath its heavy load.
Wilfred didn’t wait for signs of life, not that vampires had any. He belted from the library and back out into the corridor. Branching away from the main route, he headed for the east fire escape, but there he found Warbler and a host of hooded freaks.
‘He’s here!’ cried Warbler on sighting the angel. ‘After him!’ The demonic music teacher sent forth the hoodies in pursuit.
Wilfred bolted back the other way, turned right at the junction, and climbed the north stairwell once again. Mid-way up, he heard footsteps from above. Unable to go back down, Wilfred barged out onto the first floor. Racing past empty classrooms, he headed for the south stairs, but with the stairwell’s fire doors in sight, Wilfred suddenly skidded to a halt. Through the doors ahead emerged Trumpton and behind him came his demons.
Mr Borenett sat hunched over his desk. The history teacher was marking student essays: sixth-form summer assignments detailing the movements of ancient nomadic tribes. An enthralling topic that, inexplicably, none of his sixth-form students seemed to grasp. Each essay failed to provide enough fact and substance. It was almost like they found it all terribly dull. What could be more exciting than the history of these tribes? Studying their daily routines, their social hierarchy, their clothing, what they ate for breakfast? Some of their early pottery work was fascinating. Mr Borenett was very nearly excited, especially at the prospect of tomorrow’s slideshow: an extensive examination of a thousand pieces of broken pottery. That will get them going, he thought with a smile.
Mr Borenett secured the lid on his blue biro. He replaced the pen beside his spare blue biro, which was positioned next to his black biro ― adjacent to his spare black biro, his emergency red biro and his spare emergency red biro. He then opened his flask and poured himself a cup of weak lemon squash. As he brought the drink to his lips ― his thin spidery moustache bristling against the plastic rim ― a loud bang somewhere in the school caused his hand to jolt unexpectedly. Consequently, weak lemon squash sploshed over Elizebeth Foster’s work. ‘Heavens above!’ Mr Borenett withdrew a handkerchief from within his brown corduroy jacket and dabbed frantically. Well, as frantically as Mr Borenett was capable of dabbing. Another explosion rocked the classroom. The history teacher quickly cupped his hands over the cup to prevent further liquid from slopping over the side. Gulping down the remainder of the squash, he screwed the lid back onto his flask before another blast had the chance to knock it over altogether.
Glancing up, Mr Borenett thought he saw Mr Wilfred run past his classroom door. Mr Borenett frowned and his bushy caterpillar eyebrows drooped low over his eyes. Was Mr Wilfred wearing fancy dress? Suddenly, Mr Wilfred came running back the other way, and what’s more, he was being pursued by what could only be described as several roaring balls of fire.
Pushing up from his chair, Mr Borenett strode across to the open door. Cautiously, he poked his head out into the corridor. To his left, a grim-faced Mr Trumpton led a posy of new teachers on the warpath, and to his right, Mr Warbler marched an unruly brood of hooded students to intercept. And in the middle, right outside Mr Borenett’s classroom, stood Mr Wilfred ― and he was shining like the sun.
Quietly shutting the door, Mr Borenett withdrew into his classroom. I just need to concentrate on my marking. Returning to his desk, Mr Borenett reached for his emergency red biro.
‘Nowhere left to run, Mr Wilfred,’ said Trumpton. He limped closer with his black cane aimed at the angel.
Wilfred confessed to being in a dilemma, but he’d been in worse. After all, you didn’t get to be around for as long as he had without being able to wriggle free from the odd tight spot. No matter how bad the situation seemed, there were always options.
‘Time to die, angel scum!’ howled Mrs Gruff. The werewolf had joined Warbler and so had her new prefects. Victoria Holbrook-Smyth and Emilia Fox watched with eager eyes. Victoria had already witnessed the death of an angel, even an archangel ― a glorious experience. But for Emilia, it was going to be her first time, and she quivered with anticipation. The Sparrow brothers, Tony and Vernon ― Mrs Gruff’s muscle ― grinned boyishly. They just liked watching stuff die: ants, kittens, angels. It didn’t matter to them.
‘Any last words?’ asked Trumpton, ready with his cane.
‘Last words?’ replied the angel. ‘Not today.’
‘Then, I’m afraid, Mr Wilfred,’ continued the demon prince, ‘I forthwith terminate your contract. You’re fired!’ Trumpton’s cane erupted like a firework, disgorging a bright red stream of searing flame from its heel. In answer, Trumpton’s demons unleashed their fireballs.
Wilfred was caught between an onslaught of blistering hellfire that scorched toward him. The dark magic closed fast, converging on him from both ends of the corridor. Leaping into the air, the angel’s magnificent wings swept him upwards in a powerful surge. Concentrating all his energy before him, Wilfred channelled a pulsing blast of holy light to incinerate the ceiling above. ‘I resign!’ he cried. Ascending through the shattered opening, he burst up onto the second floor and didn’t stop.
Below, the hellfire crashed together. It roared like a living entity, like a ravenous monster born of flame. Yet without a host to feed upon, the fiery beast soon withered and died.
Smashing from the school through a lofty skylight, Wilfred flew up into the night sky to safety ― a shining beacon of light in the darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Deus Lumen Est!
‘Oh, what lovely hair,’ lied the skinny blonde girl.
Timothy could see her face in the mirror. She looked like she’d just been dumped by her cheating boyfriend whilst watching a steamroller run over her new puppy. He knew what she really wanted to say: ‘You don’t need a hairdresser. You need a tree surgeon with a chainsaw.’
Timothy’s mother, Susan, also noticed the hairdresser’s apprehension and tried distracting her with idle chit-chat. ‘Have you worked here long?’ she asked.
The young hairdresser, who seemingly couldn’t decide how to tackle the bush-like growth presented before her, slowly turned her head toward Susan and smiled weakly. ‘First day,’ she answered.
Susan frowned. Other than herself and her two boys, the salon was bereft of customers. She glanced over to the far side of the premises, where three further employees leaned idly against the sales counter. They watched the new girl with obvious amusement twitching their faces, but then they saw Susan staring, and her expression was anything but amused. Immediately, they began busying themselves with imaginary tasks.
‘Tim, I’ll take Toby to buy his new school shoes,’ announced Susan. ‘Then I’ll do a spot of shopping…catch a coffee, read a newspaper, take Toby to the park, feed the ducks and then come back for you.’ Susan had the feeling that Timothy’s ‘haircut’ was going to take rather a long time. She hoped the salon stocked plenty of spare scissors. Her son’s hair had the frustrating habit of blunting the keenest of edges.
Before leaving, Susan cast Toby a concerned glance. She winced. She would wait a few weeks before requesting a trim. She didn’t have the heart to ask the new girl to tackle them both today.
Once Susan and Toby had departed, Timothy was left alone and at the mercy of his hairdresser, who even now was on the phone to her father seeking advice on how best to ‘prune’ her client. Her father was a gardener.
While slumped in the salon’s multifunctional chair, Timothy began thinking ― and not only about how he would dearly love to push the chair’s many levers and spin around and around and jerk up and down ― but important end of the world stuff. All in all, things weren’t looking great, and he wasn’t just referring to his new haircut. The forces of evil were in the ascendancy. It was a disconcerting truth that disturbed Timothy. It felt as if God’s gamble was playing into Lucifer’s hands. Why risk everything to uncover the truth when the cause of the unrest was clear to see? Without their leader, the Devil’s followers would slither back beneath their stones. God must have his reasons, mused Timothy. He only hoped they didn’t involve selling humanity down the river just to obtain a few secrets.
Susan’s Saturday morning trip into Ashgate was also ill-conceived. It was dangerous to be away from the lair and their homes, but Timothy’s mother was stubborn and wouldn’t be told. Everyday life was fast becoming a challenge, and there would soon come a time when leaving their own front doors would be an all too risky affair. Timothy and his friends barely hung on at school. Trumpton’s control continued to grow. With each passing day, there were more demon teachers and more possessed pupils to contend with. It was clear to Timothy, Trumpton was tasked with establishing Great Underwood Upper as Lucifer’s domain, his stronghold above the Underworld.
The angel Wilfred’s expulsion from the school was the latest setback, and now Timothy and his friends were truly alone. So much rested upon Ursula’s shoulders. Without her resolve, they would all be dead. He was sure of it. If they couldn’t put a stop to Trumpton, it was over. Yet how to stop a demon prince from Hell?
After what felt like hours of chopping, hacking, cursing and bleeding, Timothy’s haircut was finally complete. By the state of the poor hairdresser’s hands, it looked like she’d come between two Rottweilers with very sharp teeth. To be honest, she was fortunate not to have lost any of her fingers, especially when wielding her father’s edging shears.
Smiling in relief, the skinny blonde girl stepped back to admire her handiwork. She burst out crying. As far as Timothy could tell, his hair didn’t appear any different from when she’d started. She blubbed and snorted, wiping away the tears from her cheeks with heavily bandaged hands.
‘Is it done, then?’ asked Timothy with a guilty grimace. He eyed the collection of ruined scissors discarded amongst plaster wrappers and piles of shorn hair on the floor. He felt sorry for the girl. It was hard putting so much effort into a project only to see it fail. Timothy could relate to that. Many a good model had ended up in the bin thanks to his little brother or Winston the cat.
The girl nodded but was too ashamed to look Timothy in the eye.
Timothy got up from the chair and handed the girl his hairy black cape ― the horrible thing that hairdressers expected their victims to wear while defiling them. He was going to say something, a few comforting words, but then he thought better of it. It was probably best if he just left. Her crumpled face suggested there would be no consoling her.
Outside on the street, Timothy was surprised by Rupert, George and the effortlessly picturesque Swedish twins, Sigrid and Gunda. ‘What are you lot doing here?’ asked Timothy as he pulled the salon door shut. ‘I thought it was sword practice today?’ The hairdresser could have done with one of our swords, he mused absently. Demon Bane would have sufficed. His great auntie’s samurai sword was legend. She would have got the job done in half the time. Although he may have lost both his ears in the process, if not his head.
