Mass thumbed the ground. “Come on, Damien. Don’t you see? Get a move on!”
Damien continued to stroll along casually, like he had all the time in the world, but he didn’t. Time was running out. Fast.
Crimolok gained strength, his wounded gait disappearing. He picked up speed, hurrying for the gate and already roaring in fury.
Damien glanced back towards the hill. He searched for Mass and the others and then shot them the middle finger. If not for the smirk on his face, it would’ve been cause to worry. Somehow, it was a gesture of respect.
Crimolok bounded for the gate.
Damien turned and sprinted. He dodged between demons, his arms like pistons. He was twenty metres from the gate. Crimolok was the same. It was a straight-up race to the finish line.
Crimolok spotted Damien and glared. He lowered his head and threw himself forward into an all-out sprint.
Damien slid through a pack of demons, grabbing their shoulders and propelling himself forward.
Crimolok was bigger, faster – but still wounded. The giant stumbled, his foot coming down on uneven ash-covered ground. At the speed he was going, Crimolok was powerless to stop himself from crashing down awkwardly onto his massive hands and knees.
Hell shook.
The gate shimmered.
Smithy gasped. “The plonker’s fallen over.”
“Even gods and angels are imperfect,” said Angela, catching her breath while the demons were at bay. “Their biggest weakness is not realising it.”
Crimolok clambered back to his feet, but it was too late. Damien sprinted the final few feet and launched himself into the air. His body passed through the lens of the gate and he was on the other side, crashing down into the thick ash.
Mass held his breath… waited.
Nothing happened.
No! Come on. Something please happen.
Damien stood and brushed himself off. He looked back through the gate, peering towards the hill where Mass and the others watched in terror.
“It didn’t work,” said Mass, shaking his head back and forth, over and over. “No. No, it didn’t—”
The lens shimmered. The hellscape beyond it began to skew – a subtle movement like the swaying of grass in a breeze.
Crimolok rose to his feet, glaring down at Damien. The giant, ancient beast seemed confused.
Damien suddenly burst into flames, burning in a raging blue fire. A badass until the end, he made no sound as his body turned to ash. He was gone in a matter of seconds.
Then Hell caught fire. The grotesque landscape twisted in on itself like a piece of paper inside a clenched fist. The lens shrunk in on itself until it was the size of a football, and then it exploded. Light, noise, and wind took over everything, assaulting every sense. It was a tsunami without water. A volcanic eruption with no volcano. It was pure, unrelenting force.
Mass and his companions pressed themselves against the dirt. If the blast was deadly, they were about to go up in smoke.
The wind came first, buffeting the shirt on Mass’s back. Then came a bone-rattling quake. The heat came last.
Mass expected to burn, but the heat never rose above that of a relaxing bath. It summoned memories of sunbathing on Brixton’s terraces as a kid, letting the heat increase until it almost burned him. Was his life flashing before his eyes?
Mass dared not lift his head to look at what was happening. If might blind him like it had the pilot. It wasn’t until the wind, the noise, and the heat had completely gone away that he dared to raise his face from the ground.
21
It was time to die. Maddy saw no other option. The boats had left the docks, leaving several hundred men and women behind to face their death. Maddy and Tosco were among those doomed souls. Sorrow and Scarlett were there too. The demon had become enraged that his ward was under such an attack. Did he realise it was useless? Scarlett was going to die no matter what he did. The girl seemed to realise it and was silent.
The demons had pushed them back to the very edge of the quay. For a while, they had managed to hide behind a storage container while Sorrow fought to keep any threats away. They had watched, and listened to, the deaths of their fellow human beings, knowing that it would eventually be their turn.
Now their turn had arrived.
Sorrow battled furiously, slicing apart demons with his talons and sending them tumbling into the water. The problem was that he was getting exhausted. For a long while it had seemed impossible that the demon might give up, but after his near death at the Crimolok’s hands, Sorrow had gradually gotten slower and weaker. Now, he gasped and grunted with every movement. More and more demons managed to injure him, slicing into his leathery flesh. Maddy and Tosco had to keep Scarlett from crying out and drawing attention to them, but when Sorrow finally fell to ground, keeping Scarlett from screaming became impossible.
The demons came in force. Three dozen of them racing down the strip of narrow wharf that housed the shipping container. Maybe there was a way inside the steel shell. Perhaps Maddy and her companions could lock themselves inside it – like sardines in a can – but that was a worse death. They would be trapped in the dark, surrounded by monsters, until they starved or suffocated.
Tosco reached out and took Maddy’s hand. Together, they grabbed Scarlett and pulled her in close. There was no point in fighting. None of them spoke; final words would change nothing.
A primate broke to the front of the pack, racing right towards Maddy. Its demonic screeching pierced the air, backed by a distant explosion – a petrol station going up in flames perhaps. Dawn was still moments away, but
