“Affirmative.” Koala-Three’s voice was subdued.
“Lets get out of here then.” The four F-111s made a gentle turn, trying to cover as much of Hell as possible. Mackay hoped that, down below, the souls trapped there would see them, some would know what they were and they would spread the word. Humanity was coming with every weapon it could muster and what stood now would not be allowed to stand again.
Banks of the River Styx, Fifth Circle of Hell
“My leader wants to talk, very urgently. Anywhere you wish. It is most important.” Rahab spoke earnestly, Gaius Julius Caesar had been most explicit with his instructions. These humans, living and dead, were what he had spent two millennia waiting for. A way to fight back against the monsters that ran this place.
“Important for him? Or us?”
“For us both I think. He…” Rahab stopped speaking her voice drowned out by a terrible screaming howl.
Lieutenant (deceased) Jade Kim recognized the sky-ripping sound instantly, the sound of jet fighter engines. Even as she looked up, four F-111s emerged from the overcast, their wings stretched out and loaded with bombs, lazily making a turn over Hell. Then, they were gone, on their way back home, just leaving their sound behind. Around her, the living and deceased members of the PFLH were jumping up and down, cheering and smacking each other on the back. Rahab looked at them in amazement.
“What is that terrible noise?”
Kim looked at her, her eyes dancing with joy. “That isn’t noise Rahab. That’s the sound of Freedom.”
High Peak Youth Hostel, Peak District, British Isles
As Lakheenahuknaasi emerged from the portal the first thing that hit her was the overpowering scent of a great deal of blood spilled in a confined space. The second thing was that this part of earth was unpleasantly cold. She found herself in a rather small room packed with demon infantry, whose cloven hooves continued to crunch the smashed remains of wooden furniture. This chamber and the others she could see leading off from it were littered with human corpses, most of them obviously torn apart by demon claws. She stepped lightly around them for now and addressed the squad leader.
“I see that you have not so much secured the area as painted it with human blood. Did they give you any trouble?”
“Very little.” The demon seemed unsure whether he should treat the gorgon was his superior or inferior. “One of them managed to grab a fire-spear and wounded one of my warriors before perishing.”
Lakheenahuknaasi's gaze followed his gesture. The injured demon was sitting on a broken table, in a white room that reeked of stewed vegetables. His left flank looked like a piece of wood riddled by termites, oozing green blood from numerous tiny holes. As she watched the demon yanked the heart out of a human corpse and stuffed it into his mouth. The dead man still held a fire spear in his hands; a chunk of carved wood with two short black metal rods sticking out of it.
“If you require nothing further?” Some of the demons had slung human corpses over their shoulders, undoubtedly as rations for their victory feast.
“Go. But take that fire spear with you. Baron Trajakrithoth may want to examine its enchantments.”
The demon warriors squeezed back through the portal, which promptly closed up behind them, leaving Lakheenahuknaasi alone in the human building. It seemed to be some sort of inn. with a central common area, what was presumably a kitchen (though she could see no cooking fire), indoor latrines (which appeared to have just been emptied) and several rooms full of (mostly smashed) bunks. It could have been a barracks but for the lack of weapons. A large triangular window showed a sunset obscured by clouds, painting the landscape of rolling grassy hills and forested valleys in a mix of oranges and grays. Here and there beams of golden light broke through and highlighted an outcropping or a stream. It almost looked welcoming save for the sparse flakes of snow melting on the window.
Lakheenahuknaasi could see no other buildings, but if this was an inn travelers could arrive at any moment. She made her way down the stairs, taking care not to slip on the blood still dripping from step to step. The door barring the main entrance was broken and warped; the triple indentations and the dead human woman seemingly still trying to grasp its handle bore witness to a last desperate attempt to escape. Stepping over the body, the gorgon yanked the protesting door open and slipped out onto the moors.
Sure enough, half an hour later Tom Sullivan crested the last ridge and sighted the hostel. “Ah, there it is dear.”
Trailing behind him, his fiancee Jennifer was not in the best of moods. “You said we'd be there two hours ago. This is the last time I let you plan the route.” She paused, out of breath. ”I'm never voting Labor again. If Gordon hadn't commandeered all the planes we could be in Italy right now. Tony was so much nicer.” Tom shook his head. He was beginning to have second thoughts about this relationship.
The couple made their way down the track to the building. What they saw there left both retching for a good five minutes. As soon as he'd regained his senses, Thomas reached for his mobile. He'd entered the number of the national demon sighting hotline just before they set off, almost as a joke, never expecting horror like this to come to sleepy Yorkshire. Five minutes later the first police units were dispatched to set up a perimeter and ten minutes after that the first territorial army trucks began to roll out of Worsley Barracks.
Lakheenahuknaasi had long since found a convenient cliff and launched herself into the air. There seemed to be no convenient thermals in this freezing place and she was forced to hook her arm spurs into her wings and flap strenuously for altitude. She became acutely conscious of how conspicuous her metallic bronze scales made her after the first time she flew through a shaft of sunlight and lit up like a disco ball.
Lakheenahuknaasi muttered a satanic curse and wished she'd had the foresight to cover herself in mud. She would've endured the mocking of the other gorgons if she'd known how much safer it would make her feel now. She considered trying to gain the relative safety of the clouds, but her wing and arm muscles were already tiring and she didn't want to risk accidentally over-flying the target. Instead she flew low, weaving through the valleys and trying to stay in the lengthening shadows. Though she did not know it, the decision saved her life; air defense control at RAF Boulmer began enforcing a no-fly zone over the area shortly after she descended to an area its radar could not cover. The inclement weather had kept most walkers at home and left the rest disinclined to watch the skies.
The gorgon flew an erratic course through the twisting valleys for the better part of an hour, with only her perception of the planet's strong magnetic field keeping her heading towards the target. Even using that was hard due to the sheer density of psychic emanations in this part of earth. Clearly the humans had not only learned the art of telepathy, they were using it to constantly gossip with each other. As she flew she saw several isolated farms and the occasional village visible in the distance. Not enough to concern her, but hardly the 'uninhabited wilderness' Baron Guruktarqor had described. Most puzzling were the lights that speed along the black strips, some constant yellow, some flickering white and blue. They could have been chariots bearing torches, but for their impossible speed and brightness, matching or even outpacing her own aerial progress.
Finally, as her wing and arm muscles were ready to give up she crested a hill and saw a great city laid out before her. It was lit so brightly that at first it seemed to Lakheenahuknaasi that the city was already aflame. On closer inspection however it was clear that she was seeing thousands of torches, strung on poles, shining out of windows and attached to moving carriages. This vast sprawling metropolis had to be the target. She could not see the smoke or fires of the forges yet, but that could wait. The immediate priority was avoiding detection while the portal was summoned. Lakheenahuknaasi glided down to a copse near the top of the hill, keeping the trees between herself and the city as much as possible. Once down she crawled into the undergrowth and crouched shivering under her wings. This world of humans was cold, unbearably cold.
The humans should be thanking me she thought, a nice lava lake is just what this place needs to warm it up a bit.' The gorgon began reaching out with her mind, straining to push through the barrier and contact her superiors. Immediately she was hit by the overwhelming babble of human telepaths. Most of the mind-speech was not speech at all, merely indecipherable gibberish. Some of it was comprehensible though. Curiously the humans seemed to have found a way to enchant their musical instruments to transmit their notes into the ether. Lakheenahuknaasi shook her head at the thought of wasting energy on such frivolous magery. Another particularly powerful human mage seemed to be chanting the words 'Hallam Eff Em' several times a minute, accompanied by jangling chimes. She spent a moment pondering the significance of this ritual before deciding that it must be just another symptom of human insanity.
Pushing the human transmissions aside, she broke through the barrier to contact Euryale. The force of greater
