Page 5 of Inbetweeners
2
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
“Wrong way, worm,” Maroc snapped. “Walk faster.”
Nix slowed down. Partly because he was in no rush to go anywhere with Maroc, and partly because his feet hurt. But Maroc turned and his fist caught Nix right in the solar plexus. Nix cried out, doubling over in pain. He should have learnt by now that it was less painful to do as he was told.
Well, he had learnt that. He was just bloody-minded along with stupid, and in any case, pain was a constant down here whether he did as he was told or not. It just made him feel marginally better not to behave like a trained dog. A feeble act of resistance, but at least it showed they hadn’t crushed him. Yet. But crushing would happen. It was only a matter of time. Though he’d go down fighting right to the bitter end. Except there wouldn’t be any end.
“They don’t like to be kept waiting.” Maroc’s cuff was so hard that it knocked Nix into the wall. He gasped as his ear throbbed.
Nix found himself unable to speed up. His legs had received the message from his brain not to hurry towards more suffering. It wasn’t even a matter of getting whatever this was over with because it was never over. That was the whole point of Hell. No respite from misery unless you managed to find a place to hide for a little while, or you were so vile you got promoted to torture someone else, though there would always be someone higher who’d take delight in hurting you. Even Lucifer felt the torment of God. Not that Nix had met Lucifer. That had to be a good thing.
But if Lucifer was in charge down here, then why was everyone so into hurting everyone else? Hadn’t the murderers, paedophiles, rapists and the rest been doing the devil’s work on the surface? Nix would have thought they’d have been welcomed with open arms, not made to fear they’d lose their arms at any moment. Unless God was in charge of Hell too. That made a vague sort of sense.
Nix had never believed in any sort of higher power. He’d thought Heaven and Hell was a load of rubbish. He didn’t believe in God or the Devil. Atheism hadn’t saved him, which was fucking unfair.
“Faster!”
When he didn’t speed up to Maroc’s satisfaction, Nix found himself being hauled along the rocky corridor by his neck, and he struggled to get his feet under him before his knees were ripped to shreds.
“Where did you think you were going earlier?” Maroc barked. “You’d been told to come to me.”
“I was on my way.”
“You were walking in the wrong direction.”
“Was I? I get lost. It’s a maze down here.” Though he knew every nook and cranny on this first level. Nix could move from the sheer drop on one side, to the sheer drop on the other, in complete darkness if necessary. He had a collection of potential hiding places for when some fucking arsehole of a demon decided to pursue him, a few narrow crevices where he could lie unseen in the hope that his pursuer would lose interest in the hunt and find someone else to torment. He’d thought about using a hidey-hole when he’d been told Maroc wanted to see him, but Maroc had caught up with him before Nix could get there.
Maroc shoved him through a badly constructed door and slammed it after him. Hard. Nix was surprised it didn’t fall to pieces. He was also surprised Maroc hadn’t gone in there with him. Nix found himself facing Erlik and Xaphan. They were old demons, and didn’t live on this level, but came up to graze. They’d both grazed on Nix, though not at the same time.Yet.He clenched his backside and swallowed hard. Everything down here was suffixed byyet.
Not done that to him. Yet.
Not chopped off one of his limbs. Yet.
Not split him apart. Yet.
“Bow,” Erlik barked.
Nix bowed. He didn’t want to, but a bow cost him nothing but a bit of pride and he could always tell himself he was inspecting his knees. Ah, bleeding again.As were his feet. No one could stop him thinking what arseholes they were. All of them. Every fucking demon he’d met. Without exception. He’d stopped looking for someone who was reasonable. They were all liars and cheats and sneaks. Everyone was out for themselves.
He looked back at Erlik and Xaphan. Not only were the pair huge, they had frightening faces that bulged in weird places, their teeth were jagged, and they had large spiralling horns with tips that looked as if they’d been through a super-efficient pencil sharpener. Nix had had one of those. An irony that it was called Angel 5. What he didn’t have…yet…were horns or a lumpy face.
He checked his head every time he woke up. Somehow, when he did get horns, he felt as if it would be the end. He knew he was a demon, but without horns, he could pretend he wasn’t. He wished he never had to wake up. But that was hell for you. At least he could sometimes sleep undisturbed. Being able to sleep and dream kept him sane. Being fucked by these two would drive him insane, though there were advantages in that.
“You’ve been selected to go back,” Xaphan told him.
Back?Where was there to go back to? He was on the first level of Hell and there were lots more levels to endure beneath this one, as Maroc delighted in reminding him. And who’d picked him? Erlik and Xaphan?
“Back where?” Nix asked.
Erlik pointed up and Nix’s heart almost burst out of his chest.
“Orders from Lucifer. You’ll be working for Paranormal Resolutions at 17 Drill Street, Greenwich. Your boss is called Tar. When the job’s done, you’ll return here.”
What a huge incentive to finish the job.
Almost as if they could see what he was thinking, the pair smiled. Not smiles Nix was happy to see. Their teeth terrified him. He could almost feel them sinking into his neck, ripping out his flesh in thick chunks. His throat went dry and goose bumps flashed down his body.
