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CHAPTER NINE

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO HELL




From the ghost of a long gone theatre, we came to a dead house in a dead place. A crumbling old mansion, set on a grim grey moor. The sky was overcast, the sun barely out, and a freezing wind was doing its best to cut right through me. All the windows had been bricked up, and the only door was a featureless slab of wood. The old dark house looked more like a prison than home: the kind of place where old sins and family secrets could be kept securely hidden from the outside world. Where a locked door was meant to keep people in, as well as out.

“I don’t think I want to meet whoever chose to live in a place like this,” I said.

“You’re not the first to feel that way,” said Amanda. “Why is why the house has been left abandoned for so many years.”

“Then what are we doing here? And where is here?”

“The north of England, in the early nineteenth century,” said Amanda. “When the secret masters tried to prove once and for all that science ruled the world, by creating life using the scientific method rather than any natural means. Welcome to the house of Frankenstein.”

I looked at her sharply. “Wait just a minute; are you telling me Frankenstein was real? That his monster was real? Come on, Amanda; legends are one thing, but we’re talking about a work of fiction now.”

“Just another half-remembered dream, of the way things used to be,” Amanda said patiently. “Another story that refused to be forgotten, because it had important things to tell us.”

I studied the old house carefully. “If there’s nobody home, what are we doing here?”

“There’s still something in there, that you need to see.”

I nodded. I was getting used to that. “What’s with the windows?”

“Frankenstein didn’t want anyone to see what he was doing,” said Amanda. “Of course, that led to all kinds of stories. Local people still believe this house contains a gateway to Hell.”

Something in the way she said that made me look at her. “An actual entrance, to actual Hell?”

Amanda met my gaze unflinchingly. “Frankenstein opened a door to a dimension of absolute chaos and utter horror. And the door is still there, because it was never properly closed.”

“Then what’s stopped all Hell from breaking loose?”

“I did,” said Amanda. “I went in and closed the door. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to finish the job.”

“Why not?”

“Because the man I had helping me then wasn’t up to it. He lost his nerve.”

I had to raise an eyebrow. “I wasn’t your first choice?”

“At that point, I still thought of the Outsider as an enemy.” Amanda kept her gaze fixed on the old house rather than look at me. “Charles was a good man, with good intentions, but that wasn’t enough.”

“Wait a minute. You’re the pookah, one of the great old powers. Why do you need anyone’s help to close a door . . . Or to put history back the way it was?”

“There are rules,” she said flatly. “Humans rewrote history, so a human has to be part of its restoration. The door to Hell was opened by a man, so a man has to be there to help me secure it.”

“What did my predecessor do, that was so bad?”

“When I tried to seal the door permanently, Hell threw an army of demons at us. Faced with all the horrors of the Pit, Charles broke and ran. I had to face the demons alone, drive them back through the door, and then close it as best I could. I need you to help me finish what I started, or history is doomed to remain the way it is.”

“Why?” I said.

“Because Hell likes things the way they are.”

There are times when you realise there’s no point in asking any more questions, because you’re never going to get an answer that will satisfy you. Or even one you can live with. I gestured at the featureless front door.

“I’m not seeing a handle, never mind a lock . . .  I suppose I could kick it in.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Amanda. “That door was designed to hold off angry mobs with torches and battering rams.”

“How did you get in the last time you were here?”

“I appeared with Charles in the main hall, right in front of the door to Hell. Which might have been part of the problem. He never got a chance to prepare himself.”

“Against what?”

“Soldiers of the Pit,” said Amanda. “Monsters, from the underworld.”

I nodded, back on familiar ground. “I can do monsters. And I can definitely do doors.”

I took the athame out of my pack, and thrust it into the top left-hand corner of the door. The witch knife sank all the way in to its hilt, and I dragged the blade down through the thick wood, sawing a line from top to bottom. I jerked the knife free, slammed it back in on the other side, and cut another line facing the first. Then all I had to do was join the lines at top and bottom, and a whole section of the door toppled slowly backwards, to land on the floor beyond with a deafening thud.

“Sorry about the noise,” I said. “Bit of a giveaway, that we’re here.”

“Hell knows everything,” said Amanda.

I shook my head. “Really not helping . . . ”

I put away the witch knife, and stepped through the opening. Light spilled in after me, revealing the beginnings of an intimidatingly wide corridor. The walls were bare stone, and there was no sign of any furniture or fittings, as though whoever lived in the house couldn’t be bothered with fripperies like style or comfort. The air smelled dank, and stale, and there was a definite sense of foreboding. Amanda pushed impatiently past me, and snapped her fingers. A ball of light appeared hovering over our heads, its shimmering glow bright enough to illuminate the whole length of a corridor whose sheer size and scale actually took my breath away for a moment.

“Look at that . . . ” I said. “You could drive a truck down there and not bump into the walls!”

“Frankenstein’s family always did think big,” said Amanda. “Which was probably part of what made him the way he was.”

“All right,” I said. “We’re in. Now what?”

“Just follow the light,” said Amanda. “It’ll take us straight to Hell.”

I looked at her. “Smile when you say that.”


We set off, and the ball of light sped away before us, bouncing along like a dog set off its leash. Amanda peered happily around her, studying everything with great interest, as though we were just tourists visiting a stately home. Everything was perfectly still and silent, as though nothing had changed since the house was abandoned, because it was still shocked and traumatised by what Frankenstein did within its walls.

“Something really bad happened here,” I said quietly.

“Frankenstein turned his family home into a charnel house, and made his name a byword for blood and horror,” said Amanda. “But that’s science for you.”

I stopped abruptly, so she had no choice but to stop with me. The ball of light shot on without us, realised we weren’t following, skidded to a halt and hurried back to bob impatiently over our heads. I looked steadily at Amanda.

“I need to know what happened to my predecessor, Charles.”

Amanda nodded. “Of course you do.”

She put her hand on my arm, and suddenly we were in the middle of a huge hall, staring at a door standing upright and unsupported, surrounded by shadows and silence. Two figures stood facing the door. One was Amanda, though her face seemed colder and more focused, and the other was a handsome young man in a smart suit, holding a glowing sword. Carcosa’s Doom, the present-day Amanda whispered in my ear. A grown up version of your athame. Charles liberated it from the Department’s armoury when no one was looking. I watched the earlier Amanda approach the door, her face set and intent. It swung slowly back, revealing a darkness so absolute even my Sight couldn’t penetrate it. Amanda stopped, and Charles moved quickly to stand beside her, sword at the ready. And then all the forces of Hell burst out of the dark and into the light, and Charles started screaming.

Hideous, nightmare shapes, constantly growing and shrinking and taking on new attributes, as though searching for some form that could survive in our rational world. Impossible tangles of many-jointed legs and thrashing tentacles, sex organs lined with teeth that vomited streams of maggots. Mouths that never stopped screaming, and eyes that had seen all the horrors the Houses of Pain had to offer.

Everything that had ever scared humanity, made real, and hungry.

Amanda stood her ground, staring Hell in the face, and wherever she looked demon shapes exploded. Charles finally stopped screaming, but only because he didn’t have the breath to keep it going. He raised his sword and cut and hacked hysterically at the demons. The glowing blade sliced through everything it touched, leaving misshapen bits and pieces to writhe and hump on the floor, still trying to get to him. Carcosa’s Doom couldn’t kill any of Hell’s foot soldiers, because none of them were alive.

Forced to confront things he had never wanted to believe were possible, Charles didn’t just look scared and horrified, but actually broken on some fundamental level. As though the demons’ very existence was an affront to his reason. Shocked tears streamed down his face, and his flailing attacks grew wilder and more desperate. Suddenly he threw his sword aside and turned to run. Amanda stopped him with a gesture, freezing him in mid-step.

She headed straight for the open door, and the demons retreated, unable to face what they saw in her. Step by step she forced the monstrous things back, just by being her, until the last of them had retreated through the door, and there was nothing in it but the concealing darkness. Amanda stared unflinchingly into Hell, and the door swung slowly shut. Amanda turned her back on it, and walked over to Charles. She stood before him, staring dispassionately into his face, and then she picked up the discarded sword and stabbed him through the heart. The glowing blade punched out of his back in a flurry of blood, but Charles didn’t make a sound, because he couldn’t. Amanda pulled the sword back and Charles collapsed, to lie unmoving on unpolished floorboards in a slowly spreading pool of blood.


My Sight shut down. I was back in the empty corridor, and Amanda’s hand was no longer on my arm. I felt as though she’d just stabbed me through the heart. I stared accusingly at Amanda, and her gaze didn’t waver in the least.

“You killed him!” I said.

“I sacrificed him,” said Amanda. “It was the only way to hold the door shut, in the face of so much pressure from the damned. We could have sealed it permanently, if he hadn’t run.”

“So Charles’ death was his own fault?”

I could hear my voice rising dangerously. Amanda stared back at me, her eyes full of all the understanding in the world.

“Now you know why I showed you all those other places and people, Jack. So you could learn how to face overwhelming odds, and become the kind of man I needed you to be.”

I couldn’t say what I wanted to, so I said something else.

“Where did you find Charles?”

“Hiding in George’s shadow. A field agent who’d grown disenchanted with the Department’s aims and practices. Charles swore he was ready to do whatever it took to bring about a better world. But when the time came, he didn’t have what it took. You won’t have that problem.”

“So all this time you’ve been preparing me,” I said. “Honing your weapon.”

“I needed a partner I could depend on.”

“Would you sacrifice me, to close the door?”

“Wouldn’t you want me to?” said Amanda. “Rather than risk Hell breaking loose, and running wild in the world?”

We looked at each other.

“I need to See what Frankenstein did,” I said.

“Then follow me,” said Amanda.


We set off down the corridor again. The ball of light bounced along ahead of us, happy to be moving again. I couldn’t look at Amanda. I was still having trouble coming to terms with how quickly she’d turned on Charles. I had to wonder how she persuaded him to follow her into a place like this. Did she tell him that she loved him?

Amanda finally came to a halt halfway down a side corridor, before a door that had been left standing open. I moved cautiously forward, and peered inside. The room was still and silent and full of shadows. The shimmering ball dropped down to project its light through the open doorway, and the shadows retreated a little.

“It’s not much, but it’s not home,” said Amanda. “This is where Frankenstein achieved his life’s ambition. Only to see it turn to ashes in his hands.”

I stepped carefully into the room, with Amanda right there at my side, entirely calm and composed, as though nothing had happened between us. The ball of light ducked under the door’s lintel and then shot up to bob against the ceiling. Its shimmering light revealed only a large empty space, with nothing left behind to suggest what might have happened in it. But something about the room’s atmosphere made my skin crawl, as though we were surrounded by unseen horrors.

“The ghosts of yesterday are never far away, in the house of Frankenstein,” Amanda said quietly.

“Is this where he made his monster?” I said.

“The creature was always going to be monstrous,” said Amanda. “He took after his father.”

“A living man, pieced together from dead leftovers.”

“It was supposed to be science’s greatest triumph,” said Amanda. “But in the end, Frankenstein had to cheat to get what he wanted. You can sew dead tissues together as neatly as you like, but no matter how much electricity you shoot through them, your creation is never going to do anything but lie there. Dead is dead. So Frankenstein found another way.”

“The door to Hell,” I said.

“Exactly. Hell’s energies sparked the creature to life, not lightning from the heavens. And so it woke up angry. a thing that knew it shouldn’t exist. Are you sure you want to see this?”

“I need to know,” I said.

Amanda’s hand dropped gently onto my arm, as though apologising in advance.


Now the room had a feverish aspect, like a hothouse in a hospital, forcing life into unwilling patients. It stank of spoiled meat and acrid chemicals. The walls were sweating, and sudden rushes of moisture coursed down over detailed anatomy charts. There were no examination tables, no trays of surgical instruments, no baroque scientific equipment, just half a dozen mud-smeared coffins piled up against the far wall, their lids cracked open to get at the contents.

Two men stood opposite each other, glaring into each other’s faces like boxers in a ring. Or perhaps just father and son, caught up in the argument of generations.

One of them was tall, slender, aristocratic. In his exquisitely tailored suit, complete with old school tie and a fresh carnation in the buttonhole, he might have just stopped off on his way to some fashionable gathering. His face was lean, harsh, driven, dominated by cold grey eyes and a jutting nose. His hands caught my attention; delicate and long-fingered. Surgeon’s hands.

I knew his name. Everybody did.

Facing him was a huge towering figure wrapped in a long coat barely big enough to contain him. Because this man never had anything that didn’t come from someone else. The skin of his face was stretched unnaturally taut, like an actor who’d overdone the botox. His lips were black, distended with congealed blood, and his eyes were different colours. Long stringy hair hung down around his face, as though trying to hide its terrible aspect from the world. Huge bony hands hung at his sides, clenched into fists.

I knew who he was, who he had to be. The man forever known by his creator’s name.

Frankenstein and his creature. The unnatural father, and the son built from corpses instead of a woman’s love. They stood facing each other in a room haunted by death and life, and neither would look away.

“You are such a disappointment to me,” said Frankenstein, in a high clipped tone. “Not at all what I intended.”

“I didn’t ask to be made!” The creature’s voice was rough and harsh, as though talking was always going to be painful.

“The lament of every ungrateful child,” said Frankenstein. “I had hoped my creation would be more original.”

“You never wanted a son,” said the creature. “Just a successful experiment. You made me to make a point.”

Frankenstein shook his elegant head. “If I had known you would be the result, I would have tried harder. You were to be my perfect Adam, the forerunner of a new and noble race. Instead, I have a thing of rags and tatters, without grace or gratitude.”

“Oh, I have so much to be grateful for,” said the creature. “You made me strong, and filled me with enough rage to know what strength is for. I will remake the whole world in my image: cold and unforgiving.”

“The world is not yours to play with,” said Frankenstein. “You are simply a mistake that must be corrected. I shall take you apart and return you to your separate beginnings and do better next time.”

The creature laughed. It was an ugly humourless sound. “You can’t kill me. What was never born can never die.”

“I know all there is to know about life and death,” Frankenstein said coldly.

“No,” said the creature. “Not yet.”

He slammed a hand in under Frankenstein’s breastbone, burying it to the wrist. Frankenstein’s shocked gasp was interrupted by a torrent of blood from his mouth. The creature jerked his hand back, and it was full of something crimson and purple, spurting blood. He held it up before Frankenstein’s dying eyes.

“Well, what do you know,” said the creature. “You did have a heart, after all.”

He crushed it to a bloody pulp, and Frankenstein fell dead to the floor. The creature opened his hand, and let the dripping mess fall onto his creator’s face.


The vision disappeared, as Amanda took her hand off my arm. The room was empty again, though still heavy with concealing shadows.

“Have you seen enough?” said Amanda. “Frankenstein’s creature is long gone, but the door to Hell is still waiting for us.”

I turned on her. “You wanted me to See this! So I’d be outraged enough to do what you want!”

“If that’s what it takes,” said Amanda.

“You ask so much . . . ”

“But none of it’s for me. It’s all about rescuing humanity from the prison the secret masters made for all of you to live in.”

“You’re a pookah,” I said roughly. “Why should something like you care about us?”

She smiled, perhaps just a bit sadly. “Because you’re so loveable.”


The main hall turned out to be a huge affair. It took some time to cross, while our footsteps echoed back from the distant walls. The ball of light shot up to bob against the high-raftered ceiling, so it could spread its illumination across the open space. The door to Hell was still standing upright and alone in the middle of the hall, and approaching it felt like staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. I circled the door cautiously, only to be a little thrown when I discovered the other side wasn’t there. A door that could only be seen from the front because its opposite side was somewhere else. I moved back to stand in front of the door and then looked to Amanda, who was courteously giving me some space. Or perhaps just maintaining a safe distance.

“Are the demons still there?” I said. “Waiting for the door to open?”

“They’re always waiting,” said Amanda.

“All right,” I said. “How do we close this thing permanently?”

“First we have to talk to the door’s guardian,” said Amanda. “The one I left in place to hold back the demons. Someone who would never stop fighting them, because he could never be killed.”

A chill ran through me. “Charles? He’s still here?”

“I bound his spirit to this place, so he could do in death what he failed to do in life. Stand his ground and do his job.”

“That’s cold, Amanda . . . ”

“It was necessary,” she said. “Charles! Make yourself known to us, there’s a dear.”

And just like that a young man in a smart suit was leaning against the door to Hell. He looked real enough, but his shirt front was soaked with blood from where he’d been stabbed. The ghost of Carcosa’s Doom hung at his side. He ignored me, fixing Amanda with his cold cold eyes.

“Yes, my dear, my only love; I’m still here. I’m always here. I can’t even go for a little stroll around the castle to pass the time. Not that I’d want to. There are other ghosts here, and you wouldn’t believe the noise they make. Still, there are always visitors dropping by. And I get to fight them back, night after night, saving the world over and over again. I should get a medal.”

“You’ve done a good job, Charles,” said Amanda.

“It’s not like I was given a choice!” Charles started away from the door, his eyes dangerous, only to stop abruptly as she met his gaze unflinchingly.

“I had to do someone to guard the door,” said Amanda. “And you were all I had to work with.”

“You have no idea of what I’ve been through,” said Charles. “Torn apart, over and over, only to be pulled back together again by your magics. Did you think it wouldn’t hurt, just because I don’t have a body?”

“I’m sorry,” said Amanda, and her voice sounded genuinely soft and kind. “I should never have expected so much from you.”

Charles nodded slowly, as the anger went out of him. “I really did love you. I think I would have volunteered, if you’d asked.”

Amanda smiled. “You’ve come a long way, Charles.”

He didn’t smile back at her. Instead, he turned abruptly to look at me. “So, you’re my replacement. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Don’t believe her, don’t trust her, and above all don’t love her. She can’t love you back, because she only looks human.”

“You always did talk too much, Charles,” said Amanda.

She snapped her fingers, and the ghost blinked out of existence.

“Where did you send him?” I said.

“To his rest,” said Amanda.

“How much of what he said was true?”

“That’s for you to decide,” said Amanda.

“Can you really love me?” I said. “If you’re not human?”

The smile she showed me then was a small and fragile thing. “I’m a lot more human than I used to be. That’s what hanging around with people does to you.”

A sudden intuition tapped my shoulder like a warning, and I turned quickly to stare at the door.

“Something’s coming. Getting closer. I can feel it.”

“I know,” said Amanda.

“What do we do?”

“You stand your ground,” said Amanda.

I tore my gaze away from the door to stare at her. “Just me?”

“It’s the ritual,” said Amanda. “You have to fight what comes through and force them back so I can close the door forever.”

Before I could say anything the door to Hell swung back, but instead of the dark I saw an endless labyrinth of suffering, like an infinity of living butterflies pinned to a display board. I turned my face away, and fell back a step.

“Jack,” said Amanda. “Please. Hold your ground.”

I stopped where I was. “How am I supposed to fight something like that?”

“Demons have to make themselves physical to have an effect in this world, and what is physical is vulnerable,” Amanda said steadily. “Just buy me some time, Jack, to do what needs doing.”

“Is that what you told Charles?” I said.

“Yes,” said Amanda. “He should have listened.”

I forced myself to face the door again. The chaos had vanished, and the darkness had returned. As though something didn’t want me to see what was coming.

“I can fight monsters,” I said. “It’s what I do.”

“There are all kinds of monsters,” said Amanda. “Hell will send whatever scares you most.”

“You are really not helping, you know that?”

“Would you rather I lied to you?”

“Yes!” I said.

“Lies are Hell’s business,” said Amanda.

Two oversized white gloves appeared out of the darkness. They gripped the doorframe on both sides, and then hauled their owner out of the dark and into the light. A clown in multi-coloured silks stood slouching before me, with a gaudily painted face but no eyes, only empty sockets crusted with dried blood. The red red mouth stretched wide in a horrid grin, revealing jagged broken teeth. The gloved hands opened and closed menacingly.

I punched the clown in the face so hard my fist smashed all the way through and out the back of its skull. For a moment the clown just stood there, and then it stepped carefully back, pulling its shattered head off my fist with a certain wounded dignity. It took another step back into the dark, and was gone.

“I never liked clowns,” I said.

“I could tell,” said Amanda.

I looked at my fist, but there wasn’t a trace of blood on it, or even a smear of greasepaint. A movement in the dark caught my eye, but when I turned to face it what stepped out was worse than any monster. A middle-aged man stood before me, smiling easily, looking exactly the way I remembered him.

“Dad?” I said.

“Of course I went to Hell,” said Tom Daimon. “Hell is where all the well-meaning people go, when they don’t understand how the world works.”

“Why are you here?” I said. “Why did Hell send you?”

“Because I’m the one person you’d trust to tell you the truth. Listen to me, son. The thing that only looks like a woman has been using you, right from the start. You were doing such a good job as my successor, removing all the last traces of magic from the world, that she decided you had to be stopped. She made up this whole other history nonsense, just to distract you from doing your job. She only pretended to care for you so she could defuse you.”

I drew the athame from my pack, and held it out before me. The blade was shining so brightly I could barely look at it.

“What do you want, Dad?”

“I remember that knife,” he said. “And how it can cut through absolutely anything. We want you to use it, Jack, to cut the ties that bind and let us out. Let all of us out.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because Hell isn’t what you think it is,” said Tom Daimon. “Hell is the last true repository of free will. Think what this world could be like, without all the stupid rules and regulations. If everyone was free to achieve everything they ever dreamed of.”

I shook my head. “I’ve seen what happens to people when they throw away the rule book. I saw what abandoning her moral compass did to Miriam. I could have liked her, if she hadn’t lost her way.”

“Would you like to talk to her?” said Tom. “Ah . . . Amanda didn’t tell you where she sent your little friend, did she? There are lots of people you know, just waiting to come back through this door. Because all the best people end up in Hell. Join us, Jack. I promise you’ll feel right at home. And we’ll have all the fun in the world.”

“That’s enough!” I said. “My father was always all about his duty. He would never have gone along with this bullshit. How stupid do you think I am?”

The demon with my father’s face shrugged easily. “It was worth a try.”

“But thanks for coming,” I said. “It was good to see my dad again, if only for a moment. And, you reminded me of something I’d forgotten.”

The demon wasn’t smiling any more. “We could have done this the easy way, Outsider. But if it’s blood and horror you want . . . ”

He disappeared back into the darkness, but before an army of living nightmares could come boiling out I cut at the door with my athame, and the glowing blade sheared clean through the doorframe and all the darkness it contained. The door to Hell vanished, and it felt like a terrible weight had been removed from the world. I laughed shakily, and nodded to Amanda.

“All I had to do was cut through the ties and bindings Frankenstein put in place, and the door to Hell was no longer anchored here.”

Amanda clapped her hands, and grinned broadly. “It took you long enough to work that out.”

I stared at her. “So all that stuff about buying you time . . . ”

“Was just something you needed to hear, to get you to stand your ground.”

She walked forward to stand before me, until our faces were so close I could feel her breath on my lips. Her eyes were impossibly bright, and in them I could see everything I ever wanted.

“I’ve brought you as far as I can, Jack,” she said. “Now it’s time for you to tell me what’s really going on.”

I nodded slowly. “I have been thinking about this, and putting things together. Stop me if I miss out anything important. You set all of this in motion when you arranged for Richard Dadd’s painting of “The Faerie War” to be rediscovered and put on display in the Tate. As bait, to attract my attention. So you could meet me, apparently accidentally, and then . . . what? Seduce me into doing what you wanted?”

“I had to do something,” said Amanda. “The Department had kept the Outsiders so busy doing its dirty work, that your family had destroyed most of the remaining vestiges of magic. And once the last of them was gone, the rewriting of history could never be undone.”

“You took me on a tour of England’s magical history so I could appreciate what would be lost. You wanted me to care enough to fight for it.”

“I did set out to make you fall in love with me,” said Amanda. “But somewhere along the way I fell in love with you, Jack. You became so much more than I expected: a hero and a legend in your own right. I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

“What happens to us?” I said. “If we do bring back the magical world?”

“I don’t know,” said Amanda. “But wherever we end up, I want to be with you. Always.”

“Good,” I said. “Because that’s what I want too.”

She came forward into my arms, and we held each other for a long time.

Eventually, I pushed her away. Because there were still things that needed doing.

“Where do we go now?” I said.

“To the one place in the present where magic can still be found,” said Amanda. “Because it never went away.”


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