The Devil's Detective by Simon Kurt Unsworth Page B

optimism any worse than the helpless rage Fool himself had felt standing in the street over the headless corpse? He supposed not.
Poor fool
, he thought, not sure whether he meant Gordie or himself, and then something shrieked and scuttled in though the doorway.
    It was aflame, low to the floor and casting off thick smoke and flickering light in oily wreaths as it went. It darted past them, crashing into the mattress that Gordie was holding, knocking it from his grip and disappearing under it as it fell. Gordie staggered, unbalanced by the collision, and Summer cried out his name. The air filled with the stenchof burning meat and material as flames licked out from the underside of the mattress, more black smoke pouring out with the smell, making the air acrid and sharp. Whatever was under the mattress, it thrashed against the weight, shrieking again, the sound shuddering the hanging smoke and echoing around the room. There was an answering shriek from somewhere else in the house and the mattress shifted, bucked up, and released a drift of jittering sparks before falling back to cover the thing.
    â€œIt’s a child,” Summer cried, crouching. More flames capered across the mattress’s surface, stopping and sizzling at the edges of the old stains. Summer tried to lift it, but the flames caught at her fingers and she dropped it. “Gordie, please,” she called as the thing screeched again. Fool heard pain and longing in the cry, and anger and something more, unknowable and fragile. Gordie went to Summer, throwing a helpless look at Fool, and pushed at the mattress with her, throwing it back from the burning creature that was turning in frenzied circles under it.
    â€œIt’s a child,” Summer said again, but it wasn’t.
    It had some human flesh, that was true, but the thing on the floor was mostly demon. As well as the two human legs and arms, there were four more legs sprouting from its sides, insectile and black. Things that might have been wings had erupted from its back, but they looked wretched and stubby. Charred black lumps that might have been the remains of feathers emerged from the wings, and flesh hung from them in tatters. When it turned to them, its eyes were huge and black, taking up half of its face, and its mouth was a torn circle from which spittle and fire fell in equal measure.
    And it burned.
    The flames came from its mouth and from its ears, bled from around its eyes and from its anus, spilling down its legs and to the floor, where they spread in a viscous circle. It saw Summer and opened its mouth even wider, crying out through the fires, raising itself onto its human knees, and holding out its arms. It was tiny, Fool saw, only two feet long at the most, and its belly was rounded and pudgy, bouncing as it moved. It was almost completely covered by the fire now, the whole of it emerging and vanishing behind flickering blue and orange flames and the smoke that they threw off. The insectile legs hadn’t grown naturallybut had punched their way out of the flesh of its sides, leaving weeping, crusted scabs at their exit points. Claws were extending at the end of the legs, snapping, and tiny human hands were opening wide.
    Movement behind Fool, catching at the corner of his eye. He turned to find that more of the children had arrived in the doorway, all different but somehow similar, tiny and pink and charred and warping and burning. One clambered up the doorframe, its hooked hands digging into the wood and plaster and leaving scorch marks behind. How many of them were in the hallway? Fool couldn’t tell. He drew his gun, turning back to the one in the room. As he turned it scuttled forward, darting at Summer. Gordie shouted something unintelligible and fired his weapon, and a chunk of floor exploded in front of the child, sending splintered wood leaping into the air and making the thing veer sideways. It circled them so that it was between them and the door, regarding them