governments picked up the charges to make sure she had the very best.” Singh looked at the shock on McElroys’s face. “You did not know that kitten was a trans-sexual?”
“No.” McElroy was aghast. In his pocket was a long letter he had written to kitten, expressing his gratitude for all she had gone through on his behalf. Then to find out she was a… McElroy stopped himself, hard. She still had gone through all that hadn’t she, still suffered so the people she was supporting in hell could get the tools they needed to stay free and out of torment. How dare he criticize her when she’d done all that? Inbred prejudice and irrational bigotry warred with McElroy’s reason and sense of justice. Reason and justice won out and he reached into a pocket. “Indira, could you see kitten gets this please. And send her our love, that’s from all of us. Tell her we’ll never forget what she did for us and we hope we’ll see her again but if we don’t, we hope she’ll be very happy. And tell her she won’t have to worry about going to hell any more because she’ll have lots of friends there ready to look after her.”
His team assembled, McElroy looked around. Singh was already on the portal opening couch, searching for Memnon’s mind. She found it and locked on. Then she started to shudder as the electronic equipment opened up the portal. McElroy stepped through and found himself back in Hell, but in a vastly different Hell from his previous experience. The mountains were stark, mostly volcanic, but the valleys between them were covered with vegetation, green and purple. It was warm and relatively pleasant, even the choking dust of Hell was less pronounced here. In front of him, the hulking black shape of Memnon was looking at him curiously.
“Sergeant (deceased) Tucker McElroy. We’ll take over the surveillance from here. You are Memnon aren’t you?”
“I am.” Memnon was amused by the way the question had come last. Humans were so confident their machines would work. “I must brief you on this area and where are the things you seek. Then I must fly back to Dysprosium.”
“Why don’t you portal back? We can open a gate easily enough. Just rest up until the next scheduled contact and then we’ll gate you back. No need to work harder than you have to.”
Memnon thought it over. He’d assumed he would have to fly back but the human was right. There was no need to, not now. The humans had a staging point near Belial’s fortress, why should he have to fly?
The Collegium of Fornessa, City of Dis, Hell
“You have heard the fate of Beelzebub?” Deumos sat elegantly in the luxurious seat she had brought with her.
“That he had been defeated, yes.”
“Not defeated. Killed. In an attack by human aircraft. They shot him with their cannon and blew him up with their missiles. He died like an orc, sniveling and weak.”
Dagon looked around at the decaying building that housed the meeting. He needed time to think over the news that Beelzebub had followed Asmodeus into the void. Followed him and all the others. The ranks of the Hell aristocracy had been thinned in a way none could remember. Not even the Great Celestial War had caused carnage like this. So he decided to stall for that time. “Why do we have to meet here? In this disgusting place overrun with orcs?”
Deumos recognized the stall for what it was and knew she had shocked the Great Duke. Time to answer a question with a question. “And where is Satan?”
“He moves from place to place, hiding from the humans and their aircraft. Never stays in the same place long for fear of them finding him and sending their bombers after him.”
“Satan fears the humans. Yet he asks us to fight them while he runs and hides.”
“Lady, those words are treasonous.”
“Does that make them untrue? How many millions have died already? I you do not know, I will tell you. More than three and a half million. Of Beelzebub’s army, 476 legions, only 39,000 survive of the more than 3 million who set out. The rest are rotting on the banks of the Phlegethon River. And the humans advance on Dis even while we sit here speaking.”
Deumos’s words were interrupted by the howl of jet fighters overhead. Both Great Dukes paused and looked up. The jet noise receded and was followed by the dull sound of explosions, a long way off. Somebody had just been bombed. The noise did not cause any great surprise, the sounds of human aircraft and their deadly cargoes were familiar. Familiar but still terrifying.
“And their aircraft fly over Dis without opposition.” Deumos smiled briefly. “And what are your plans Dagon.”
“I have been ordered to fight. To attack the human armies. Those orders still stand.” Dagon was uncomfortable, he had chosen to sit far away from Deumos, by an open window so the air gods would protect him from the strange magic that the Succubae used to bend others to their will.
“You will fight.” There was a note of derision in Deumos’s voice. “To what end? How will your army achieve that which eluded Beelzebub?”
“I do not know.”
“I do. You will fight, you will lose, your army will be destroyed, you will be killed. End. Have you learned nothing? The humans are the Lords of War, they cannot be defeated. They squash our armies with casual ease and they still hold back the most powerful and deadly of their weapons. For every move we make, they have a counter, already sitting in their arsenal, ready to be used.”
“But Yahweh?”
“You think Yahweh will aid us? He will sit and watch Hell and Human fight until one is gone, then he will attack the survivor. That is what humans think, it is what I and my Succubae think, and we can be very sure it is what Yahweh thinks. And the end of Hell is coming fast Dagon. It is days away, perhaps weeks at most. Have you heard the news from the pit?” Dagon shook his head. “An entire army, ten legions that were once part of the host of Asmodeus have rebelled. They have declared their fealty to the humans and attacked those who would make war on the humans. In the pit, human and demon now fight side by side, as allies. A great area of the pit, a segment of the Fifth Ring and a smaller section of the Sixth are now in human hands and those still faithful to Satan die if they go there. That area spreads hourly as the humans rescue their dead and many of them join the human army. Free Hell they call it.”
The demons rebelling and joining the humans. It seemed incomprehensible. Not just joining the humans but doing so as the junior partners in the alliance. Dagon shook his head, Deumos was right, Hell was dying. His mind ran over the options available to his army. They were few indeed and all of them led to death.
“What do you suggest Lady?” Dagon asked the question but he knew the answer.
“The humans hold Satan responsible for what has happened here. The legions in the pit have the right answer and we must follow their example. We must make peace with the humans, we must pay whatever price they ask for that peace. And, the first thing they ask will be Satan’s head. Detached from the rest of his body and very, very dead. You have said how Satan moves around too much for the humans to catch him. So we must do the deed. Kill him and set up a new rulership in hell, one that can make peace with the humans.”
“With you as ruler.” Dagon’s voice was openly scornful. The Succubae were despised, the idea of one ruling Hell was unthinkable. Most demons would die rather than allow it.
“Of course not. I am not stupid Dagon, I know what will be accepted and what will not. I cannot be ruler in Hell. But you Dagon, you can be. You are one of the very few surviving Great Dukes, you have your army to keep order. You have not fought the humans yet, they do not know much about you. We can turn that to our advantage. For we must make you acceptable to the humans, a leader they can accept.”
Ruler of Hell, successor to Satan Mekratrig. Dagon rolled the idea around in his mind. It beat inevitable death on the battlefield. “And how shall we do that, Lady?”
“The humans have been driven by the way we treat their dead. So we try to show you did what you could to help them We will set up an underground movement, we will call it.” Deumos ran the information Lugasharmanaska had sent her, searching for a suitable name. “Demons for the Ethical Treatment of Humans. We will forge documents, information, to show the humans we were trying to stop the torment of Hell, have been doing so for many years. Humans will see these and accept us. And make you the new ruler of Hell. All that we need is for Satan to die.”
Dagon ran the picture through his mind, then came across a great block that stood in the way. “But without the life energy from humans, how do we ascend to the next level. Satan collects it, it is our tribute to him. He uses it to boost us to the next level when we die. What will happen when he is gone.”
