‘Tear their heads off,’ shouted one imp, and it quickly became a chant, taken up by everyone in the room.
‘Yes, tear their heads off,’ said No1, trying it out, but there was no feeling in his voice.
What’s my motivation? he wondered. I’ve never even met a human.
The imps climbed on their benches, bobbing in primal rhythm.
‘Tear their heads off! Tear their heads off!’
Abbot and Rawley urged them on. Flexing their claws and howling. A sickly sweet smell clogged the air. Warp muck. Someone was entering the warp spasm phase. The excitement was bringing on the change.
No1 felt nothing. Not so much as a twinge. He tried his best, squeezing his eyelids together, letting the pressure build in his head, thinking bloody thoughts. But his true feelings shattered the false visions of bloodlust and carnage.
It’s no use, he thought. I am not that kind of demon.
No1 stopped chanting and sat, head in hands. No point in pretending – another change cycle was passing him by.
Not so the other imps. Abbot’s theatrics had opened a natural well of testosterone, bloodlust and bodily fluid. One by one, they succumbed to the warp spasm. Green gunge flowed from their pores, slowly at first, then in bubbling gushes. They all went under, every one of them. It must be some kind of record, so many imps warping simultaneously. Of course, Abbot would take the credit.
The sight of the fluid brought on fresh rounds of howling. And the more the imps howled, the faster the gunge spurted. No1 had heard it said that humans took several years to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Imps did it in a few hours. And a change like that is going to hurt.
The howls of exultation changed to grunts of pain, as bones stretched and horns curled, the gunge-coated limbs already lengthening. The smell was sweet enough to make No1 gag.
Imps toppled to the floor all around. They thrashed for a few seconds, then their own fluids mummified them. They were cocooned like enormous green bugs, strapped tight by the hardening gunge. The schoolroom was suddenly silent, except for the crack of drying nutrient fluid and a rustle of flames from the stone fireplace.
Abbot beamed, a toothy smile that seemed to split his head in half.
‘A good morning’s work, wouldn’t you say, Rawley? I got them all warping.’
Rawley grunted his agreement, then noticed No1. ‘Except the Runt.’
‘Well, of course not,’ began Abbot, then caught himself. ‘Yes. Absolutely, except the Runt.’
No1’s forehead burned under Rawley and Abbot’s scrutiny.
‘I want to warp,’ he said, looking at his fingers. ‘I really do. But it’s the hating thing. I just can’t manage it. And all that slime. Even the thought of that stuff all over me makes me feel a bit nauseous.’
‘A bit what?’ said Rawley suspiciously.
No1 realized that he needed to dumb it down for his teacher.
‘Sick. A bit sick.’
‘Oh.’ Rawley shook his head in disgust. ‘Slime makes you sick? What kind of imp are you? The others live for slime.’
No1 took a deep breath and said something aloud that he had known for a long time.
‘I’m not like the others.’ No1’s voice trembled. He was on the verge of tears.
‘Are you going to cry?’ asked Rawley, his eyes bugging. ‘This is too much, Leon. He’s going to cry now, just like a female. I give up.’
Abbot scratched his chin. ‘Let me try something.’
He rummaged in a cape pocket, surreptitiously fixing something over his hand.
Oh no, thought No1. Please no. Not Stony.
Abbot raised a forearm, his cloak draped over it. A mini-stage. A puppet human poked his head over the leather cape. The puppet’s head was a grotesque ball of painted clay, with a heavy forehead and clumsy features. No1 doubted that humans were this ugly in real life, but demons were not known for their artistic skills. Abbot often produced Stony as a visual incentive for those imps who were having difficulty warping. Needless to say, No1 had been introduced to the puppet before.
‘Grrr,’ said the puppet, or rather Abbot said, as he waggled the puppet. ‘Grrr, my name is Stony the Mud Man.’
‘Hello, Stony,’ said No1 weakly. ‘How’ve you been?’
The puppet held a tiny wooden sword in its hand.
‘Never mind how I’ve been. I don’t care how you’ve been, because I hate all fairies,’ said Abbot in a squeaky voice. ‘I drove them from their homes. And if they ever try to come back, I will kill them all.’
Abbot lowered the puppet. ‘Now, how does that make you feel?’
It makes me feel that the wrong demon is in charge of the pride, thought No1, but aloud he said, ‘Eh, angry?’
Abbot blinked. ‘Angry? Really?’
‘No,’ confessed No1, wringing his hands. ‘I don’t feel anything. It’s a puppet. I can see your fingers through the material.’
Abbot stuffed Stony back in his pocket.
‘That’s it. I’ve had it with you, Number One. You will never earn a name from the book.’
Once demons warped, they were given a human name from Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow. The logic being that learning the human language and possessing a human name would help the demon army think like humans and therefore defeat them. Abbot may have hated the Mud Men, but that wasn’t to say he didn’t admire them. Also, politically, it was a good idea to have every demon on Hybras calling each other by names that Leon Abbot had procured for them.
Rawley grabbed No1’s ear, dragging him from his seat to the rear of the classroom. A metal grille on the floor covered a shallow, pungent dung pit.
‘Get to work, Runt,’ he said gruffly. ‘You know what to do.’
No1 sighed. He knew only too well. This wasn’t the first or second time he’d had to endure this odious task. He hefted a long-handled gaff from a peg on the wall, pulling the heavy grille from its groove. The smell was rank but not unbearable, as a crust had formed on the dung’s surface. Beetles crawled across the craggy skin, their legs clicking like claws on wood.
No1 uncovered the pit completely, then selected his nearest classmate. There was no way of telling which classmate it actually was because of the slime cocoon. The only movements were small air bubbles around the mouth and nose. At least he hoped it was the mouth and nose.
No1 bent low, rolling the cocoon along the floor and into the dung pit. The warping imp crashed through the crust, taking a dozen beetles with him into the muck below. A gush of dung stink washed over No1, and he knew his skin would smell for days. The others would wear their pit stink proudly, but for No1 it was just another badge of shame.
It was arduous work. Not all the warping imps were still. Several struggled inside their cocoons, and twice demon claws punctured the green chrysalis centimetres from No1’s skin.
He persisted, groaning loudly, in the hope that Rawley or Leon Abbot would lend a hand. It was a vain hope. The two demons were huddled at the head of the classroom, poring over Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow.
Eventually, No1 rolled his last classmate into the dung pit. They were piled in there like meat in a thick stew. The nutrient-rich dung would accelerate their warp, ensuring they reached full potential. No1 sat on the stone floor, catching his breath.