Rémy’s singing was rising in pitch. He was holding his notes longer, breathing more deeply, effortlessly filling the room with a heavy silver fog. Don Grigori tried to match the pitch of his pipe to Rémy’s voice, his eyes burning with fear and loathing. The higher the wall of flies grew between him and Matt, the higher Rémy’s voice soared. The flies fell from Matt’s body like he was shedding his skin. With a growl of rage, Don Grigori played on, darkening and thickening the water in the pool to the smell and consistency of sulphurous tar.
This is what hell smells like.
‘Keep going!’ Matt shouted, swatting at the remaining flies. ‘Rémy, you’re winning!’
Don Grigori’s pipe changed pitch. The tar rose up out of the pool in the shape of a great golem, eyes blazing red as if Don Grigori had made his evil visible. The flies encased the beast, their bodies merging, giving the creature great black wings so that it was able to lift itself from the pool and cover the ceiling. The beast’s dark mass loomed above the boys, separating them from Don Grigori on the other side of the room.
Rémy felt Matt sketching in his wide-open mind, twisting the music into ink, marking out something cold and hard which materialized in his hand. A sword with a black handle, its blade etched with the Conjuror’s mark. Next, a full set of black leather armour clothed Rémy from head to foot. Rémy lunged at the monster, swinging the blade, sending a limb-like chunk of tar flying against the wall, branding its shape into the cold, hard stone.
*
Matt stuck his fingers in the repulsive tar-like substance and began to draw for himself now, a set of medieval armour with a black-handled sword, its silver blade etched with the same mark.
Looking sick, man…
Not letting you have all the fun…
Rémy let his voice rise up to the heavens again. He slashed and lunged into the heart of the creature with his sword. The beast’s eyes burned like the flames of an imagined hell. Rémy swung at them, detonating one glowing eyeball and sending it spattering in Matt’s direction. It hit the ground with the sound of sizzling flesh.
Together they hacked their way into the belly of the beast. In seconds, they could see through to the cowering Don Grigori on the other side. They could see the panic strip the castrato’s face of all colour, his eyes darting from side to side, searching for a way out of this hell of his own making.
A thunderous rumbling shook the entire space as if they were at the epicentre of an earthquake. Chunks of plaster rained on them from above. The entire cellar groaned.
Rémy thought of his mother and her years of suffering and study. All for him. He thought of Tia Rosa and her life of sacrifice. All for him. And finally he thought of his dad, whom he had known so briefly, who had loved him and his mother more than his own life. His voice shifted to a growling version of Tia Rosa’s favourite song.
‘When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark…’
A gigantic sucking hole opened in the floor beneath Don Grigori ’s flyblown feet.
‘Walk on, through the wind, walk on, through the rain…’
The castrato screamed, high and pathetic, as Rémy’s sword paused over his heart.
‘This is for all of us,’ Rémy said, before hitting the song’s climax.
‘And you’ll ne-e-e-ver wa-a-alk alo-o-one.’
He hit high C.
Don Grigori’s head exploded at the exact moment Em crashed through the wall in a shiny pink army tank, and almost killed them all.