Below, the creature spewed out two more gill-men. Nichols was grinning as he changed magazines and shot the gill-men before they could climb more than a few meters up the cliff face. He was counting rounds now. Each Desert Eagle clip had eight .44 magnum rounds, and he had only two clips left of the six he’d brought….
Merkerson took aim on the second stalactite that had been used by Pythagoras in his failed attempt across. His piton hit home, and he quickly tied off the end of the rope to a freshly-embedded spike. Re-attached, he painstakingly began the second leg of his trip.
Nichols kept one eye on Merkerson, the other on his targets and the rest of his team. Houdini had begun his commando crawl out from the ledge. When he was three-quarter of the way across to the first stalactite, trouble raised its damned head.
This menace was standard hellish issue: nine-foot, night-black, taloned, bat-winged and horned, it reminded Nichols of a Tartarosian. Its smooth skin glistened like fresh tar, and its body muscles rippled with great apparent strength.
As it rapidly climbed into the air toward Houdini, Nichols fired. Magnums fire dirty: smoke and flame belched from the Desert Eagle’s muzzle. The single magnum round ripped through the ebony demon’s wing and it tumbled helplessly into the protoplasmic pool below.
Merkerson took the safety off his Ingram; the Mac-10 was now ready to rock and roll. He sank another piton into a stalactite about ten meters away.
The portal in the air shimmered like a summer’s day.
Nichols saw Merkerson secure the piton just as he was targeted by a Heikegani crab with a human-faced carapace and the wings of a hummingbird. In life, Nichols had pulled duty in Japan: according to legend, each Heikegani held the soul of a samurai warrior killed in the battle of Dan-no-ura. It moved toward Merkerson. Nichols fired and missed, leaving him only six rounds.
“Merkerson, heads up!” Nichols yelled.
Merkerson grabbed his Ingram and followed the Heikegani’s progress toward him through the MAC-10’s scope. When the giant, winged crab was about ten feet away, Merkerson fired a continuous burst.
Nichols always loved the sound of a machine pistol burping: the creature, torn to shreds, tumbled headlong into the pool below.
As Merkerson resumed his crawl and Nichols shot four more hybrid crabs (leaving him two rounds in his clip); Houdini reached the first anchor point, and Merkerson got to the third stalactite and attached a safety line to it.
Eight feet from the opening.
Merkerson hammered a new spike and tied off the line that would complete the last leg of their journey. Houdini was at the halfway point. Merkerson had just begun his next crawl when another bat-winged demon arose from the abyss, followed by yet four more hybrid horrors.
Nichols immediately fired on the large demon, which left him one round and not much time to change clips when fractions of a second could mean an eternity as protoplasm in the pool below.
The other four hybrid horrors attacked Nichol’s two suspended companions, two on one.
Houdini, anchored to the stalactite, fired his .45 at the winged crab closest to him. It shattered and fell. The second blind-sided him, slamming Houdini into the rock outcropping. He dropped his gun and his mouth opened wide as he gulped for air.
Nichols had one round left in his Desert Eagle and no time left at all. The hovering samurai crab was descending on the dazed Houdini. Nichols took careful aim and squeezed.
The crab splattered all over Houdini as it died, and Nichols had a moment to change clips.
Merkerson was flanked by two more crabs that came at him from opposite sides. He annihilated the wing of one with the Ingram.
It tumbled. By then, the second was upon him. Merkerson couldn’t withstand the sudden impact. He dropped into a monkey crawl, but it couldn’t save him. Merkerson lost first his balance and then the Ingram and the piton projector.
The creature lunged at his feet. Merkerson dropped his legs, hanging suspended from the line by his hands. As the creature made another spiraling pass at him, he hung by one hand and with the other, grabbed his climbing hammer.
Meanwhile, although he had eight more rounds, Nichols couldn’t shoot at the crab or he’d likely hit Merkerson. Merkerson lodged his climbing hammer in the crab’s carapace on the second lunge and lost that too. But crab and climber were still too close for Nichols to risk a shot.
As the crab spiraled in once more, Merkerson grabbed a survival knife from its scabbard and punched the razor-sharp knife into the creature’s shell. The creature slammed into him, breaking his grip on the life line. Man and monster tumbled, each pummeling the other until they met the writhing surface of the protoplasmic pool.
The pool opened a hundred sudden mouths to consume its prey.
Nichols shouted, “Houdini! Get your ass back here. I can’t protect you any better than I did Merkerson. I don’t have enough ammo for every monster in hell. Out of there. Now! Move!”
Houdini called back, “No, my friend. Now is a time for daring. I shall leave this place, but not to return to hell.” He then stood up and deftly tightrope-walked the entire distance to the third stalactite.
Below, the pool spewed out two more fish-faced gill-men. Nichols was staring in disbelief after the crazy escape artist, so he didn’t see the first gill-man creeping up the rock face until it was almost upon him. “What? You’re hungry? Want a snack? Here you go,” Nichols said. He stepped back and, as the creature’s head popped above the edge of the abyss, he shot it face first with the Desert Eagle.
He was getting cranky, he knew, but enough is enough. And this carnival was more than enough. Nichols shot the second creature in the top of the brainpan as it scrambled up the cliff toward him.
Fools in hell are ever at home: Houdini was now at the final stalactite. As he prepared a rope to swing the final few feet into the portal, a pair of night-black wings emerged and flew at him.
Nichols was losing count of his rounds, which he hardly ever did. He thought he had six rounds left. He fired twice at the demon’s wings from the ledge but his .44 mag rounds didn’t slow its ascent. And he knew he hit it. Both times. So now, maybe, he had, five, maybe four rounds in his clip and two clips on his belt before he was in deep shit here. When Nichols got home to New Hell, he was going to have a serious talk with Asmodeus, the demon king, about what demonkind was getting up to these days.
The black-winged demon arose at such an angle as to come between Houdini and the shimmering portal.
Then Nichols remembered Pythagoras recounting the Delphic Oracle’s ravings about ‘an opening between worlds, a Demon Gate.’ Demon Gate? For damned sure. The portal that shimmered before him was this so-called Demon Gate.
Terrific. Now he could satisfy Welch’s curiosity and Satan’s need to know – if he lived long enough, or died clean and recycled to Slab A in the good old Mortuary. He’d even welcome the Undertaker’s halitosis right now.
But there was still Houdini, unarmed except for a knife, who thought he could use the demon gate to escape. That figured: what’s an escape artist want to do most of all in hell? Escape.
Nichols decided he’d shoot Houdini himself: it would be kinder.
Houdini was now positioning himself high on the stalactite, with his feet on the final piton driven by Merkerson.
Nichols couldn’t risk wasting one of his bullets, and he didn’t have a good shot at Houdini’s head – yet.
Houdini was waiting for something, too. Poised. Ready for … what?
The black-winged demon flew to within five feet of him and Houdini jumped directly at it. His feet landed squarely on the demon’s massive shoulders, between its wings. Pushing off from the demon’s shoulder he vaulted into the portal – and was gone.
Vanished without a trace. Not even a disturbance of the portal to show he’d ever entered it.
The demon wheeled smoothly about, seeking new prey.
Four or five bullets in his gun; two eight-round clips on his belt. Big demon that seemed immune to
gunshots. Nichols did the math. With great effort, he slung the catatonic Powell over his shoulder and ran for the inside of the tunnel. Somewhere back there was Powell’s plasma rifle, lost in the melee. If Nichols had had that rifle, the argument with the big black demon could have gone differently.
Then the black demon was on top of him before Nichols could react.
Flailing its spiked tail, the demon impaled the unknowing Powell, disemboweling him as he ripped the unconscious man from Nichols’ back. Nichols stumbled in the gore and his legs went out from under him.
He landed flat on his back. “Hey, Joe, come give me a hug.”
The demon came on.
Cursing in Satan’s name, lying in his companions entrails, Nichols emptied the remaining rounds in the Desert Eagle’s magazine into the demon’s face, shooting two-handed.
Nichols had been right: he had only had four rounds left, not five.
The demon reeled, the shock of the weapon knocking it back, and it tumbled from the cliff. The eviscerated body of Powell, still skewered on its tail, sped its descent into the proto-soup below. Nichols discarded his empty magazine and slapped a full one into the Eagle, whistling “Hey, Joe” softly between his teeth. With his hackles risen, determined not to look behind him in case looking at the protoplasm pool triggered the creation of the beasties, he grabbed the camera and scrambled up the tunnel as quickly as he could.
When the tunnel was once again nothing more than a crawlspace, nothing had flapped or slithered or bounded after him.
At a safe distance beyond the tunnel’s mouth (if there was such a thing), he lobbed a frag grenade behind him. When the tunnel mouth didn’t collapse, he lobbed a second, then a third, until there was enough rubble to block the opening.
Bottled up tight – at least for now.
He had one magazine in his Desert Eagle and one in his belt. The plasma rifle was long gone, left on the ledge, dropped over the edge, or grabbed by crazy Powell. He took only the memory card from the camera and ditched the rest. He still had a climbing hammer, his survival knife, plenty of line, carabiners, plain pitons, his spelunker’s helmet, clips for the Uzi he no longer had, three more grenades, some det cord and the comm link. He used the fiber-optic line to send the data he’d recorded and an encoded message through the fiber-optic line to Achilles – ‘Code 2:120/Code Red/Code Black.’ Then he began climbing back to the beach. Though his back was wrenched and both his legs hurt like hell, he might make it out of here yet.
Or at least had a damned good chance of it.
Just then heard a noise behind, and looked back: three gill-men had broken through the rubble blocking the tunnel’s mouth. And behind them rolled a Jeep-sized spherical glob.
*
Nichols’ signal for emergency pickup pleased Achilles, who was tired of drinking no-proof Saki with off-duty Japanese crew members and hoping for a little action, although he was startled by Nichol’s request for a Code Red/Code Black.
In the Huey, Achilles grinned as he laid the special backpack on the seat beside him … just as Nichols had requested. Then he started his safety check, preparing to return to the island.
*
Nichols was running as fast as he could, but each stride across the sand made his angry leg muscles burn more.
Somehow he must keep ahead of the gill-men chasing him, with a weird ball of amorphous flesh behind them. A well-placed round from his Desert Eagle might stop one of the gill-men, but then they’d be reabsorbed into the sphere.
The gill-men with their spherical caboose relentlessly pursued him. He was out of grenades and nearly out of adrenaline.
Nichols considered escaping into the surf. But the surf was black and oddly viscous along the beach. The waves rolling near shore resembled the protoplasm in the pool. He couldn’t risk it.
He tried raising Achilles via comm link, but the line was jammed by someone or something. If Achilles hadn’t received his original distress call, Nichols was fucked.
Too tired. Lungs aching. Despite his pursuers, he had to stop, catch his breath. He couldn’t outrun those things forever.
So…. Nichols took off his helmet and began emptying the powder from his remaining Uzi rounds. Fingers shaking, he cobbled together a fragmentation bomb, using his helmet, the brass, the spikes and the detonation cord.
He threw it like a bowling ball. It rolled toward the gill-men and the blob, and exploded between them. Pieces of blob and gill-men showered the beach.
As Nichols was already running toward his extraction point, slowly and erratically, black shadow covered him. He looked up and saw a bat winged demon.
If it had a face, it was smiling. It swooped down, smashing into his back with its claws.
The impact knocked him to the sand. Its claws had torn his clothes. Blood ran down his back. Trying to catch his breath, he grabbed his pistol.
The demon dived at him.
His lives flashed before him. Bullets ripped the air. The Huey’s thirty millimeter Gatling fire center punched the creature and pushed it backward as it tumbled to the beach. Nichols shielded his face from the Huey’s sandy rotor-wash.
He could see Achilles in the cockpit. Scrambling into the chopper, trying to catch his breath, he gasped, “Did you bring it?”
Achilles replied, “As the devil is my witness.” He slapped at the backpack beside him. Achilles was too savvy to ask what had happened to the rest of Nichols’ team.
Nichols grabbed the backpack and cradled it, sliding into the second seat, then began to prepare its contents.
When it was prepared, he gave Achilles the coordinates and got ready to lean out the door.
*
A mushroom cloud blossomed behind the Huey.
Achilles cursed as its electromagnetic pulse took out several electronic systems, including the Huey’s stealth capability. Panels sparked as backup systems tried to compensate.
The thirty-kiloton nuclear munition had done its job and they were still aloft. Almost home free.
When the Yamato came in sight, Nichols was counting his cuts and bruises.
As Achilles tried to raise the Yamato on the comm link, he heard a single scream in Japanese in his helmet’s headset, “Umibōzu!”
As they watched, a huge tentacle wrapped itself around the great battleship and pulled it into the sea.
Achilles said flatly, “We may not have enough fuel to make it to safety. Closest landfall is the mainland. Some call it TazzMania. Or the ice floes of the south polar region. Nobody home to help us, either place.”
“Try TazzMania and hope we don’t have to swim part of the way.” Nichols started ditching anything expendable, to lighten the Huey’s load. If he drowned, he’d make it back to Slab A and the Undertaker, which was the best death he’d been offered today. Then Nichols buried his helmeted head in his hands waiting for whatever would come to pass.
*
On Halloween night, a delegation from the Society of American Magicians held its yearly ritual, encircling the grave of their past president, Harry Houdini.
Every year they kept this vigil, on the anniversary of Houdini’s death, in hopes that he would send them a sign from the great beyond. A lawyer representing the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), no friend of the Society, attended, assuring that the magicians played no tricks.
The ritual’s climax was to break a wand in half. As the ranking magician stepped forward, flexing his wand dramatically, Houdini’s grave was encircled with light.
The magicians reflexively covered their eyes. Within the circle of light, a figure appeared. An intense and familiar figure: Harry Houdini.
Houdini reached forward. Snatching the wand from the ranking magician, Houdini held it before his face and bowed deeply.
The crowd of magicians muttered and ramped, awaiting the inevitable speech from the triumphant Houdini or whoever had staged this grand illusion.
Before Houdini could straighten up, the night sky cracked ap
art in a burst of light; a hole opened; from the bright hole came two huge black talons.
The lawyer from CSICOP lunged forward and grabbed Houdini around the waist as those talons pierced Houdini’s shoulders. The talons lifted Houdini up into the sky, the lawyer still clinging to his waist.
The hole was gone. The light was gone. Houdini was gone. And so was the lawyer.
The bemused magicians looked at the grave, at the sky, and then sadly at one another.
No one would ever believe them.
Appellate Angel
by
Edward McKeown
Arkiel, the angel, stood and tucked his wings behind his suit jacket, picked up his briefcase and left his quarters, headed for the Hall of Injustice. In hell, court was held every Sinday: there was literally no rest for the wicked, including, unfortunately, him. Arkiel was an angel sentenced to hell; he worked here. Being cast down was harsh punishment, he felt, for teaching humans forbidden knowledge, taking a woman to wife, begetting a nephil, and then, eons later, indulging in a few weeks’ dalliance with a visiting succubus. Mating with human women and teaching forbidden knowledge weren’t the worst things an angel could do. There were the minor downcast, fallen angels such as he, watchers and helpers of humanity, and then there were the great fallen angels who’d contested with the Highest…. Arkiel wasn’t all-powerful. The demonic temptress had been on earth, carrying a message when he’d chanced on her in a valley he was watching. After that, well … succubi were what they were and while Arkiel had never been a human, his animus was male. At the time it had seemed worth the risk.
Now, on another dreary Sinday, their spectacular pleasures seemed fleeting compared to his continuing punishment. He opened the door of the transients’ compound and stepped into hell proper. Before him lay Pandemonium, stretching out to the horizon. An enormous city, where all the taxi drivers were from NYC, all the trains were run by Slamtrack and the potholes had been known to eat vehicles and occupants alike. The street shimmered in the heat; moans and shrieks filled the air.
Lawyers in Hell Page 29
