Armageddon?? (33 page)

Chondrakerntolis
tried to reply but couldn’t. As his vision faded out, one question tormented
him. What happened to demons when they died?

Watch
Tower, Banks of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell.

The
thunder, strange and mysterious had echoed around the Fifth Ring.
Naxalavorsetys looked over the rim of his tower, there wasn’t much to see, just
the seething of the mud in which the humans spend eternity on the edge of
drowning. Just to be sure, he fired off a flare, lighting the area around the
tower a bit better. Still nothing. He shrugged, strange noises were not unknown
in hell. It was nothing to worry about. His shift would be over soon and he
could go back to his normal life. The regular legions were all being called
away and the jobs of the guards were being taken over by civilians such as him.
This was something that he did not like at all.

The
second blast was very definitely something to worry about. It was stunningly
close, Naxalavorsetys felt the superheated air blast at his skin, felt the
shock-wave pummel him. More importantly, he felt his watch-tower lurch as a
major portion of the stonework on one side was blown away. His tower was
collapsing and he realized what that meant even though he couldn’t comprehend
how it had been done.

It
wasn’t the fall that killed Naxalavorsetys, it was the wreckage of the
watch-tower landing on top of him that did the job.

A
few minutes later the two three-human strike teams joined up and set off for
the next target.

The
Division Wall of the Sixth Ring, Hell

Kerflumpus
always enjoyed stretching his legs, even if just to torture a few humans here
and there. Now, he was marching out of the Sixth Ring into the Fifth he proudly
threw out his chest and swung his arms. News had been all over about the
crushing defeats inflicted on the insurgent humans, and his legion was
mobilizing to move out and continue the pursuit of the shattered human nations,
to spread out and batter their world into submission.

The
prospect excited him. They said that the sky in the human world was different,
that it was light and dark, instead of the dull orange-and-brown striation.
Well, now he would get to see it – and to experience crushing the humans and
driving them before him, to taste their panic, blood, and flesh, as a member of
the second army to pour from the portal into the humans' plane.

Kerflumpus
was in the second platoon of his legion; ahead and to his left, the commander,
a Greater Demon, was swaying with the gait of his Great Beast as it stepped off
the Styx bridge. Its arched tail curled over his head, and he was sitting in
the saddle with a bored look on his face when, with a sigh, his head exploded.
Kerflumpus caught it out of the corner of his eye, and swung around with
horror, as every other demon in the unit did.

Suddenly,
something similar happened to the demon next to him: there was a whistling
sound, and then they were both staring in horror at the fist-sized hole that
had opened up in his chest. Spattering green blood all over Kerflumpus, he
staggered a few steps and fell over the parapet of the bridge into the
slow-moving, murky Styx below. All across the bridge, it seemed that demons
were falling at random every ten seconds or so, and the situation was
proceeding nicely toward absolute pandemonium: the head of the legion was held
up at the forward edge of the bridge by the dead commander, milling about with
no idea what to do; the tail of the legion was crowding into the bridge with no
idea what was going on. Meanwhile, the legion ahead of them was marching off
along the road into the mists of the fifth ring, with no idea what was
happening behind them.

There
was obviously some wizardry at work here, heretofore unknown in hell. In sheer,
undiluted panic, Kerflumpus charged his trident and loosed it off the bridge.
He was watching the head-sized ball of magic zip across the river toward the
far side when the air punched him, blanking out all sound as he was thrown up,
spinning in midair. All around him, he saw other demons thrown up, some weakly
flapping their vestigial wings; it was almost comical, and it was the last
thing he saw before the masonry fragments and shrapnel shredded him.

Across
the river, Lieutenant Kim whistled as the bridge blew. It was more spectacular
than she'd expected; the initial flash of detonation was impossibly fast, and
the blast wave ripped apart the bridge as though it were made of sand, sending
Baldricks flying. She nodded back at McInery and Tarrant. “Good work placing
the semtex, Mac and Bubbles.” The two were grinning ear-to-ear.

Behind
them, two of the other three members of Tango-one-five were setting down the
M107s. “Good shooting to you guys, too,” said Kim. It hadn't really taken much;
the Baldricks had been tightly packed on the bridge, and all they'd had to do
is fire into the crowd. The .50 caliber Mk213 bullets had done a fabulous job.
As usual.

After
surveying the scene for few minutes and letting the two pilots – both avid
big-game hunters before their units were called to Iraq – pick off a couple of
more bad guys and the commander of the next brigade-sized unit, Kim hoisted a
satchel of webbing onto her shoulder. It had about two dozen more bricks of
Semtex, the detonators, and several boxes of ammunition. “Okay, boys. We're
done here. Let's head out and get the next ambush set up.”

Adjusting
her webbing straps so they didn't chafe her through the mud caking her body,
Kim led Tango-one-five back down the Styx toward their supply cache and the
rope bridge they'd strung across the river. Once on the other side, they would
set about making the Dis-Dysprosium road a hell within hell, one that Baldricks
would fear more than they feared Satan himself. Kim already had a name for it.
La Route Sans Joie.

Palace
of Satan, Infernal City of Dis, Sixth Ring of Hell

The
banners of kingdoms long conquered swirled in the red mist as the Akropoulopos
approached the diamond throne of Satan. He had always known being a messenger
was a bad idea, and now he knew that his life was a couple of minutes from
ending. “Oh mighty prince,” he began, “overlord of the innumerable legions of –
”

“Get
on with it,” snapped Satan irritably, clicking his claws against the hewn gem.
“What news have you brought me of Abigor's brilliant success?”

“Sire,
the messengers from Abigor are silent. I bring news not of Abigor, but of
terrible happenings much closer to your throne.”

“Well,
what is it? Hurry up; my time is not your kidling's plaything.”

The
messenger swallowed and groveled. “My lord – I do not know how to say this. The
bridge leading to the road to Dysprosium has been destroyed.”

Satan
stopped clicking his fingers. “What?” His voice was quiet, which was even more
terrifying than the hysterical fits. “Repeat yourself.”

Akropoulos
was shivering uncontrollably. “Your invincible eminence, the bridge across the
Styx has been destroyed. Those legionaries who were there report that it burst
into many pieces with the roar of ten thousand demons. Flying stones killed
many, and –”

“What,”
asked Satan, cutting him off with a word, “do my advisors think to be the cause
of this ... outrage?” Still silkily smooth and quiet.

The
court was silent, save for the shuffling of feet as some of the more perspicacious
demons positioned themselves so that the inevitable rage would not claim their
lives.

“Speak!”
roared Satan. “I COMMAND you all, SPEAK!!”

One
demon timidly cleared his throat. “Um, Sire, none of us can think of any
explanation, save ... .” He trailed off, but not in time to save himself.

“Save
what?” screamed Satan, balling his hand into a fist and pounding it on his
throne.

“Save
... uh ... save, perhaps, most improbably, a bit of stray human magic?”

Satan's
glare squashed him into an unimaginably horrible pulp. “You will all find us
the cause of this outrage! You will ensure that it does not happen again! This
is our domain; our immortal, invincible will decrees that no human mage shall
ever work his magic once more in this infernal pit!”

As
the court demons hastened to obey, scrambling around the wide hall, Akropoulos
took the opportunity to scuttle unnoticed away. As he hurriedly left the
palace, he promised himself to try again to join the legions; messengering was
too hazardous a job.

Fifth
Ring, Hell

The
road, large flat paving stones laid atop a low causeway of dirt, wound through
the foggy swamps. The half-muted groans of the eternally-drowning souls
crucified in the mud echoed dimly through the stinking air. McInery surveyed it
with a grim smile. “You think we can actually blow the causeway, ell-tee?”

Kim
shrugged. “Why the hell not try, Mac? Bubbles, you got the Semtex?”

“Aye,
ell-tee, right here.”

“Let’s
lay it.” Kim directed the other members of Tango-one-five recon flight to lay
eight Semtex bricks on each side of the road, spaced several hundred feet
apart. The bricks were pushed down into the soft earth, no more noticeable than
large rocks.

As
Tarrant finished pushing the electronic detonators into the last brick, McInery
hurried up to where Kim and the rest of Tango flight were standing. “Ell-tee,
we have contacts coming from that direction.” He waved behind him.

“How
many, Mac?”

“Didn’t
count; just saw the torches and heard the voices.” In the distance, dim
chanting floated through the mist toward them.

“Everyone,
off the road!” she hissed. She grabbed the last bag, slung it over her
shoulder, and waded into the bog after the others. They made toward a low
granite outcropping just within view of the road. As they hurried behind it,
stumbling past several submarine crucifixes, the chanting grew louder.

“Pie
Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.” The tramping of the feet, all in step, grew,
and the first torchbearers appeared through the mist. Kim suppressed a gasp;
they were not Baldricks. These were honest-to-God Cherubs, dressed in pure
white that seemed to glow like pearl through the thin fog, and they were
chanting something – was it Latin? Whatever it was, Kim had enough of a musical
ear to note that the singing was perfect, the pitch exactly correct, the timing
exquisite. She couldn’t have emulated it herself, when trying to sing, she hit
all the right notes, she just hit them in the wrong order.

In
the midst of the Cherubs – all chanting, all bearing torches, and all wearing
swords at their sides – were greater humanoids head and shoulders taller than
the others, with flawless skin and, damningly, white wings folded across their
backs. “Mac, how many you count?” whispered Kim.

“I
got seven angels, ell-tee, and seventy-seven cherubs.”

“We’re
at war with heaven and hell both, right, guys?”

There
was a mutter of affirmation from beside her, and a brisk, quiet, “Let’s take
them!” from one of the big game hunters, who had been a devout Catholic up
until The Message. Kim nodded and thumbed the detonator.

The
concussion knocked the breath out of her, even at this distance. The blast tore
the heavenly emissaries apart, spattering white and red blood and body parts
along with the dirt, mud, and chunks of rock. After, where there had once been
a road, there was a giant gaping hole filling with vile, gurgling swampwater.
The group of angels and cherubs was scattered in many pieces through the
surrounding swamp.

When
she got her breath back, Kim was last in line as Tango flight trooped away from
the carnage as fast as they could, quietly jubilant. Then a stray thought
crossed her mind. “Boys, we’re going to need some more Semtex.”

The
Banks of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

Rahab
looked at the dead Beast and its rider in horror. The Beasts and the demons who
rode them were invulnerable, everybody knew that. Those few who had tried to
kill them had died deaths that were terrible even by the standards of hell. Yet
those new arrivals had killed this pair. She knew who had done it all right,
nobody else would have the gall to even try. And if that wasn’t enough, the
letters PFLH written n the Beast’s side in its own blood were enough.

Were
they insane? Rahab’s stomach clenched with fear at what was likely to happen.
Once these deaths became known, there would be revenge, reprisals. The demons
would come down here by the legion, searching every inch of ground for those
who had done the deed. In the process, they would find all those who had
escaped from the pits over the millennia and, at best, return them to torment.
Thousands of souls doomed to return to their agony because these six decided to
upset the natural order of things. When she had left them in the underground
room, Rahab had been sorely tempted to ‘arrange’ for them to be found by the
guards and returned to the pits. She had dismissed the idea, believing that
their comments and stories had been just wild boasting. Now, she guessed they
were not and she bitterly wished she had betrayed them. Condemning six souls
was better than dooming the tens of thousands of escapees.

She’d
been searching for them for days, trying to catch up with them and bring them
into shelter. Now she had found this. She agonized over the decision, what to
do? At that point another fact penetrated her bewildered mind. She had seen no
flares from the watchtower that lay close at hand. Fearfully she made her way
to where it had stood, only to be appalled by the sight that loomed through the
mist. The watch tower was a blasted stump, its wreckage spread all over the
paths, some of it sinking into the mud. And on the stump were the letters PFLH.
Written in the blood of the watch-demon.