(Congrats to Jan who wrote the first part, Starglider the middle and Surlethe the end)
Chapter Fifty One
Secure Accommodation Block, Camo Hell-Alpha, Martial Plain of Dysprosium
The double doors burst open and Colonel Paschal strode in, flanked by MPs carrying menacing USAS-12 combat shotguns. The concrete room was the size of a small hangar, but the huge demon made it look like a cramped apartment. The big plasma screen was showing images of WWII aircraft attacking warships. The stack of DVD cases next to it confirmed that Abigor had been continuing to absorb military documentaries and war movies. The infernal general looked up with a surprised expression, which quickly hardened as he saw the heavy guard detail.
“General Abigor.” Paschal was carrying a ruggedized laptop, which he opened and placed on a table in front of the demon. “Can you explain this?” The colonel’s tone was not quite threatening, but clearly the humans were not pleased.
Abigor stared in silence as the images of lava, fire and destruction played out. “Belial” he said, in a tone of mild contempt. “This has to be his doing.”
“Belial?” Paschal had studied Abigor’s profiles of the top demon leadership but he didn’t recall the name. “Who is Belial?”
“A sniveling failure. Count Belial is the ruler of Tartarus, a barren wasteland in the part of hell furthest from Dis. Satan exiled him there many millennia ago, after he walked right into a trap laid by Lahabiel and got his entire army captured or killed.”
“If he’s an exile, how did he manage to do this?”
“Belial has been trying to regain Satan’s favor, by all means of craven and dishonorable means. His realm survives only because he makes himself useful, with his fancy tridents and his overgrown wyverns. His retinue is composed of failures like himself, mostly demons that deserted their lords instead of dying gloriously in their service.”
Abigor paused for a moment before continuing, uneasy with how close he had come to describing his own situation. Then he tapped the computer screen with a talon. “I have seen this before. Belial used a similar trick to destroy two human cities, back when we were last surveying this planet. Satan and Yahweh were competing to visit creative forms of suffering on the humans. As I recall, Belial’s flashy little stunt went down quite well, well enough for Mekratrig to allow him back into his court.
Paschal frowned. “The bible speaks of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah… by Yahweh though, not by Satan or his minions.”
Abigor snorted. “Well of course. The angels were always better at propaganda than us. Whatever your books say, it was Belial’s doing.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier?”
“It did not occur to me that Satan would consider this a viable tactic. This is not the way wars are fought…” The demon paused for a second, considering the things he’d seen on the image panel. “At least, it is not the way we fight wars. Most likely Belial is looking for another opportunity to ingratiate himself and Satan has permitted him to proceed in the hope of distracting you while Beelzebub moves his army up for a fresh assault.”
Colonel Paschal seemed to relax fractionally. He couldn’t be sure Abigor was telling the truth, but his story was plausible given what he’d seen of demon mentality so far.
“So how does this work? Is the lava coming from a volcano?”
“Most likely. The last time I was in Tartarus was during the Great War, when we used it as a prison to hold high-ranking captured angels. That was a very long time ago, but I remember the prison nestled in the mountains, many of which were crowned with fire.”
“Can you give us anything more specific?”
Abigor shrugged. “Not really. I don’t know the specifics of the ritual. Large portals are always handled by the naga, they keep many of the secrets of portal magery to themselves.”
“Naga? Is that what you call the demon flying over the attack site? Looked like an anorexic harpy to me.”
A low chuckle escaped the former general’s lips. “No, that was a gorgon. Another exiled failure, not surprising that most of them took up with Belial. Naga are much more common… I’m sure I described them to one of your vassals earlier.”
Colonel Paschal hit a few keys, calling up the interrogation logs for Abigor. Sure enough, there was a page of text describing ‘naga’ along with a striking artist’s impression of the half-snake, half-humanoid demons.
“I had a coven of them in my retinue,” Abigor volunteered, ‘but I didn’t bring any with me to earth. They’re slow and soft-skinned, and I did not appreciate the power of your ranged weapons, so I didn’t see any use for them.” He wondered if it would’ve made a difference if he had brought them. Certainly not to the outcome, but perhaps the human casualties would have been a fraction higher. He thought again, a small fraction higher.
“Is the gorgon necessary to open the portal? If we shoot it down before the portal opens, will that prevent the attack?”
Abigor stared into space for a moment. “I believe the gorgon was there to ensure the portal opened over the target. You see, the larger the portal, the harder it is to predict where it will open. The one you call the ‘hellmouth’ opened a full five leagues from the nephilim I possessed.”
“The naga do have a means of opening portals more accurately, but it requires a portal mage at both ends. I imagine the gorgon you saw was involved in that. If you could kill Belial’s witches as they appear, then he would be reduced to striking at random in the vicinity of whatever nephilim he could find.”
‘Better than nothing’ Paschal thought. “The target was Sheffield, a relatively small city in the British Isles. We aren’t aware of any obvious reasons to target it, other than the fact that British troops played a small but significant role in your defeat. Do you know why Belial chose that target?”
“No. Belial is fond of bizarre schemes… but then he must have used a nephilim to open a portal for the gorgon. It may be that your counter-magic is getting so good that he was forced to take the first nephilim he could find, and the gorgon just flew to the nearest city.”
‘So no way of knowing where they will strike next’ Paschal thought unhappily. “We need to know when he’ll strike next. How many times can Belial do this, and how often?”
“I can’t give you firm answers Colonel. I do know that opening large portals is a great strain on the naga, they are weak and pained for many days afterwards. Tartarus has a great many volcanoes. The rate at which Belial can open portals depends on how many naga he has and how quickly he can find targets. If Satan intends to use this method to exterminate you, then he might order the dukes to loan Belial their covens until the task is done.”
“If not a firm answer, then an educated guess?”
“Belial should be able to open at least one portal a week.”
Paschal was silent for a moment. “I’ve got to relay this to my superiors. Sit tight, Ill be back shortly.” He pulled a black box from a pocket and brought it up to his ear as he left the room.
Abigor stared at the frozen image of the burning city. For a while he was completely certain that the humans would defeat Satan, but now he was not so sure. Old traditions were being discarded, the once unthinkable was being considered. The humans had given hell an object lesson in how efficiently war could be conducted when one made decisions purely on the basis of effectiveness, not honor, politics, auspiciousness or tradition. How fast could hell learn?
Paschal had returned. “Ok General, let’s do this properly. I need everything you can tell me about Belial and Tartarus, starting with its grid co-ordinates.”
Abigor wasn’t sure what ‘grid co-ordinates’ meant but he got the impression it had something to do with maps. “You want to know how to get to Tartarus?” Of course, the humans wanted to stop the attacks by destroying Belial. “It is almost three thousand leagues from here, across all manner of terrain. Even with your chariots, it would take many months to fight your way there, and Satan would harass you and your supply train all the way.”
Paschal smiled grimly. “General, I have a small gift for you.” He handed over a small flat box, one that Abigor recognized immediately as a DVD. It was labeled ‘A History of the Manhattan Project’. “Abigor, you have barely begun to see what we can do when we truly wish to destroy our enemies.”
