Armageddon?? (113 page)

“Hokay,
you want to die twice in one day? Look where you’re going girl. Them Abrams
will squash you flat.”

“I’m
sorry, I’ve just…. Can you tell me where the treatment area for people who have
been recovered from the hell pit is?”

“Sure
can. We’ll be passing right by it. I’ll drop you off, get in.”

“Thank
you.” Haggerty climbed awkwardly into a Humvee. “Last time I was in a vehicle I
went to sleep and that got me here. I’m Janice Haggerty, nurse.”

“Keisha
Stevenson, Colonel United States Army. My battalion just got here.”

“You’re
new here too?”

“Nah.
Last time I was here, this was all Baldrick country. Now its just like downtown
Bayonne. There’s even a Macdonalds as if hell wasn’t bad enough on its own.”
The Humvee swerved through the column of tanks and dropped off the blacktop on
to a dirt road. “Hellpit recoverees are just ahead. Some of them are in pitiful
state. Been in torment so long they can’t remember anything else. You gonna be
doing a worthwhile thing there girl. Hokay, this is your stop. Keep the faith.”

Haggerty
started. “What faith.”

Stevenson
smiled broadly. “Why faith in science, engineering and applied firepower of
course. What other faith could there be?”

Chapter
Seventy Eight

Grays
Lane, Clifton Council Housing Estate, Outside Nottingham

Time,
tide and the SAS wait for no man. Gorgons, they were something different.
Gorgons needed care, the available intelligence pointed out that they were
uniquely dangerous. They had a means, as yet unidentified, of entrancing humans
even when their victims were firmly clad in a good–quality tinfoil hat. The
experts had been consulted and the results were disquieting, they suggested
that the gorgons could entrance a human just be staring at them. Fortunately,
the bit about them turning a human into stone had been discounted, it was
believed that they were just a greatly exaggerated version of entrancement. It
did appear, though, that the gorgons could kill as well as entrance. Some of
their victims had been found with curious spines in them, that was a hint as to
how they managed both entrancement and killing.

So,
the SAS troops were kitted out in head-to-toe Kevlar, woven to give anti-stab
protection as well as against bullet strikes. Of course, that wouldn’t help any
if the gorgon started throwing lightning bolts around but one took what one
could get. All in all, Captain Greg Crowleigh felt he had taken every
precaution he could, the SAS might have a reputation for charging into
situations but in reality, a vast amount of careful planning went on first.
This strike had been no different although Crowleigh was grimly aware that he
and his men were considered the B-team if that. The best of the SAS personnel
had been deployed to Hell where they were raising their own particular brand of
chaos. Well, now was the time to show the powers that be what his people could
do.

“Ready
Sergeant?”

The
figure behind the grenade launcher nodded although the motion was barely
visible behind the gas mask and body armor.

“In
your own time then. Your shot is the go-signal.” There had been no need to
repeat that, it had been stressed in the briefings often enough but Crowleigh
was taking no chances. He hadn’t quite got the self-confidence to trust himself
to get the message over. Although he didn’t realize it, that was why he was in
the B-team.

The
grenade launcher coughed, sending a 40mm tear gas grenade through the
downstairs window of the house. An instant afterwards, four more launchers sent
similar grenades through the other windows at the front, sending white smoke
boiling upwards. Crowleigh started his run, jumping up from cover behind the
hedge and heading for the bay windows that marked the living room. The house
was a standard council property, similar to thousands of others scattered all
over the U.K. This one hadn’t been bought by its occupiers during the 1980s but
that wouldn’t change its floor plan. If anything, it made the assault easier
for the tenants wouldn’t have made any radical changes the way an owner might.

Two
blasts from the automatic shotgun he carried dealt with the window itself, then
Crowleigh dived through the shattered glass, landing on the carpet inside in a
smooth roll. A figure, human, was staggering around in the white haze of tear
gas, wailing and holding it’s eyes. Then, it saw the black shape as Crowleigh
rose to his feet.

“Goddess,
you’ve come down to save us!” Then there was a brief pause as the human stared
at the new visitor through streaming eyes. “You’re not our Goddess, get out of
our temple.”

The
figure lunged for Crowleigh with hands raised in claws. The Captain didn’t
hesitate, one shotgun blast threw the human back against a wall, a second sent
it tumbling to the floor. As it died, a Sergeant moved past him and flipped the
internal door open. It lead to the hallway, stairs to the top floor leading off
from one corner. Another figure was standing on those stairs, holding a piece
of wood as a club. The Sergeant didn’t let it speak, although it was so racked
by coughing that speech seemed unlikely. The burst from the shotgun blew the
figure into rags.

Crowleigh
and his men quickly fanned out through the tear-gas ridden house. Individual
shotgun blasts or short bursts marked the demise of more members of the cult
who had made this house their ‘temple’. The old days of HK-5 sub-machine guns
had long gone, pistol bullets just didn’t work well enough against Demons. Two
more cult members tried to escape out the back doors but were shot down by
snipers who were part of the perimeter that isolated the building. The gorgon
inside had evaded capture at least twice already, it wouldn’t make it three
times on Crowleigh’s watch. The neighbors had been quietly evacuated, the
surrounding buildings checked out then used to house the SAS personnel who were
conducting the raid. Further out, a second perimeter reinforced the first.
Nothing got through either without being very carefully searched.

Upstairs,
Lakheenahuknaasi heard the crash of the windows breaking and the sound of
gunfire as the members of her cult were cut down. That didn’t worry her, they
were expendable and could easily be replaced if she got the chance. That was
the problem, if. The house was filled with a strange white smoke that caused
her eyes to stream and her lungs to sear. Worse, the same smoke was having the
same effects on the tendrils that adorned her head, they were writhing in an
incontrollable red and black mass. Completely useless and without their
protection, Lakheenahuknaasi felt hideously exposed as she heard the pounding
on the stairs that presaged the door of her room exploding inwards.

Sergeant
Doyle saw the ghastly figure in the back of the room, its golden scales not
hiding the horror of its appearance. It’s head was crowned by a mass of red and
black snakes that seemed to have gone berserk, they were flailing about
uncontrollably but he could still see the single eye that dominated each. The
threads were shooting off barbs, mostly they were hitting the walls and ceiling
but a few came Doyle’s way and that was enough. He leveled his shotgun and
fired round after round into the struggling gorgon.

Lakheenahuknaasi
felt the shots hit her and knew it was over. She had failed her mistress and
her time on earth was done. It had been nice being a Goddess for a while and
she had had an insight into what made Yahweh tick. It was good to be adored,
even if the adoration was forced on an unwilling subject. The human was
standing over her with his shotgun leveled and that was the last thing she saw
as the world faded out around her.

“That
is one ugly mother.” Crowleigh looked down at the mutilated gorgon on the
floor. “Is it dead?”

“I
do sincerely hope so Sir. I put ten slugs into it.” Sergeant Doyle had already
reloaded his shotgun just in case.

“The
orders were to take no chances. Tell Private Bodie to get the refrigerated van
over here. The medics will want to dissect this one before it rots too much.
And wrap that head up in something, the last thing we want is those blasted
snakes shooting off more spines.”

Crowleigh
left the house and watched the bodies being assembled on the pavement. More
than a dozen humans, some men, some women, all entranced by that single gorgon.
It had been busy during its brief stay on Earth. Around the barriers set up by
the police, a small crowd was growing, mostly just staring at the bodies as the
line grew. The sky-volcano over what was left of Sheffield had gone, the gorgon
responsible had been killed at last. It had proved a reasonably good day after
all.

Underground
Fortress of Palelabour, Tartarus, Hell

Euryale
woke with a shock, her eyes quickly scanning her lair for an assassin who might
have crept in. The cave seemed empty, it wasn’t an intruder who had wakened her
so abruptly. On an instinct, she started to scan across the gorgons who had made
the trip to Palelabour. They were all present, but one mind, one far removed
from the rest was gone. Euryale knew who that mind was and could guess why it
was no longer showing up on her scan. Lakheenahuknaasi are you there my child?

Silence.

Euryale
repeated the call over and over but there was no response. Her fears were
confirmed, Lakheenahuknaasi was dead. She had expected it, the earth-bound
gorgon had lasted longer than she had expected and the information she had
brought back was more than valuable. It had given Euryale an insight into human
habits and capabilities that had stunned her. She had shared only a little of
that information with Belial, keeping most of it close to her chest because the
implications were so overwhelming. Besides, information was a treasure and
nobody parted with treasure when they didn’t have to. Now, the source of that
treasure was cut off and Euryale would have to make do with what she had.

One
thing stuck in her mind. Lakheenahuknaasi had told her humans were vengeful and
held grudges a long time. She had told Euryale of historical disputes that had
gone on for centuries over some small, insignificant patch of land. In some
parts of the human realm, feuds had gone on for centuries over some minor
insult whose original cause had been long forgotten. When she had heard that,
Euryale realized that the humans would not forgive the destruction of Detroit
and Sheffield. They would want vengeance and would go to any lengths to achieve
it. The destruction of the Adamantine Fortress had shown that. Euryale had
flown over to it, seeing how it had been crushed into ruins. If Belial hadn’t
had the insight to get them out, he and all his clan would now be dead.

Euryale
relaxed back on her bed, staring at the ceiling of her lair. Human vengeance
was a certain factor and they would not stop until they got it. So how would
she and her gorgons survive the impending disaster? That was the question and
it still nagged at her mind until she slipped back into sleep.

The
Ultimate Temple, Heaven

This,
Michael-lan thought was going to be tricky.

Yahweh
was sitting on his throne, in the same half-bemused position that he had
occupied when Michael-lan had last seen him. His eyes were remote, unfocussed,
hypnotized by the rhythmic chants of praise that filled the air around him.
Combined with the clouds of incense, they created a glurge of adoring worship
that quite turned Michael’s stomach.

“Oh
Great and Eternal Father of us All. I bring news of the great conflict between
Earth and Hell and of the fate of our Eternal Enemy.”

Yahweh’s
eyes snapped out of his trance and focused on Michael. “And have the humans
been defeated? Has Satan done as we wished and taken them into his domain?”

Here
we go. Michael’s inner mind relished the effect that his news was going to have
on Yahweh. And let the good times roll. Michael-lan had liked New Orleans
almost as much as he liked Las Vegas. He had been really upset with Yahweh
when, in a fit of pique over something or other, Yahweh had turned the course
of Hurricane Katrina on to New Orleans.

“No,
Eternal Father. In fact, it is our Eternal Enemy who faces defeat. The humans
go from strength to strength, they have smashed the armies of Hell, and killed
many of the leading commanders. Beelzebub is dead, Asmodeus also, both killed
by humans. Many more, too many to name now, although we have the list. The
humans bombed the Eternal Enemy’s own palace, reducing it to rubble and killing
all who attended him. The Eternal Enemy was spared only by chance. Dis itself is
under siege and the Eternal Enemy is trapped inside. The humans command the
skies over Hell, they have occupied much of its ground. Their armies go where
they wish and destroy all who stand before them.

“But
this is not all. Eternal Father, Highest of the High, Ruler of the Heavens”
Michael left the ‘and Earth’ bit off, partly to annoy Yahweh, partly out of
regard for the truth, but mostly because he’d get to that bit later. “The
Humans have struck at the Plateau of Minos. They have killed Minos and all who
labored with him and they have seized the plateau. All the humans who die are
now transported to the parts of Hell occupied by humans. Not one human soul
goes to Hell.”