Free The Infernals by John Connolly Page A

those responsible for the Collider, for she did not want them to shut it down.It would not be enough to stage another invasion, but in time it might be. It was not even enough to enable her to cross over from her world to theirs, for a powerful old demon like herself would require enormous energy to move between universes. But it would be sufficient to pull a human being from their world into hers, and she knew just the human being she wanted. She would drag Samuel Johnson to Hell and present him to her master as a prize. Then she would reveal the secret of the blue light to him and he would love her again.
    As she rose to her feet, the Watcher began to speak. It told her of strange tracks in the dirt, of a black substance on rocks, of the smell of fumes and burning in the air. When it was finished she touched its head with her hand, and it bowed low with gratitude.
    “All good things come to those who wait,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “All good things…”
    She began to laugh, a terrible sound. It echoed around the chamber, carried across the plains, and was heard by the demons who had abandoned her. Some fled, fearing her vengeance for their betrayal, but others prepared to return to her, for if Mrs. Abernathy was laughing then circumstances had changed, and they might yet profit from it. Foul beings emerged from holes in the ground and caves in black mountains, from pits of ash and pools of fire. They crawled, wobbled, and slimed their way from their hiding places, and slowly began to make their way back to her.
    The most diabolical creatures of that realm, the Infernals, were answering her call.

In Which Mr. Merryweather’s Elves Embark on a New Adventure
     
    M R. M ERRYWEATHER’S ELVES WERE making good time on the motorway. There had been some initial problems with driving the van, since the only one of them who had a license was Jolly, and his legs were even shorter than those of his fellow dwarfs and therefore had no chance at all of reaching the brake or the accelerator. This problem was solved by gluing a bottle of Spiggit’s Old Peculiar to each of the van’s pedals with extra-strong adhesive, so Jolly simply had to step on a bottle cap to speed up or slow down.
    The dwarfs had been feeling somewhat glum since Mr. Merryweather had stomped off down the road, muttering and waving his fists, and vowing never again to work with anyone who couldn’t look him in the eye without standing on a chair. Say what you wanted to about Mr. Merryweather—and the dwarfs had said virtually everything about him that they could, includinga number of insults that would be unprintable in a guide to swearing for sweary sailors—he had at least found them work, and he had stood by them following various incidents of assault, arson, and on one occasion, conspiracy to overthrow an elected government. Without him they were going to struggle to find jobs, and avoid arrest.
    Mumbles and Dozy stared mournfully into their glasses of Spiggit’s. Even though the van’s suspension was suspect and made drinking from a glass difficult, it was generally considered unwise to drink Spiggit’s directly from the bottle. 21 In the first place, it was uncivilized, as ale always tasted better from a glass. In the second place, Spiggit’s tended to have an odd, cloudy residue that lurked at the bottom of every bottle, rather like one of those strange creatures that live in deep trenches on the seabed, waiting to snap at the unwary. Jolly had once drunk some of that residue as an experiment. 22 The immediate effect was to cause him to seek the comfort of a toilet for so long that it was suggested he might like to take out a mortgage on it. Three months later, as he told anyone who would listen, his insides still weren’t right, for somewhere in his digestive organs Spiggit’s Old Peculiar continued to ferment away merrily, as the beer had the kind of long life more usually associatedwith lethal radiation. He was still prone to attacks of temporary