McElroy lost count of how many times that had happened to him.
On my way! McElroy shouted. I'll let you know when I'm out.
It didn't take long. Panic-driven instinct combined with this glimmer of hope, and he scrambled out of the flames and onto the rocky shores of the lake. Unmindful of the sizzling hunks of flesh and fat that he left on the ground behind him, he crawled ten meters before he collapsed.
Clear!
He just wanted to close his eyes, but of course, he couldn't. He wanted to breathe again, but he couldn't. The agony slowly dimming and to his amazement, his sight was already beginning to return. Dim and shadowy certainly, but returning. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, he noted with detached amusement that a demon had already spotted him and was closing quickly, bellowing some pointless taunt or curse. Tucker couldn't tell, because his ears were long gone.
Had he dreamed the whole thing? Hallucinating on top of burning in Hell? He would've smiled at the thought, but he already brandished a skeleton's grin. Maybe when his lips grew back, he'd smile again. Now, though, the demon was nearly upon him.
Oh well, back to the lake for him.
Then, the demon did a very strange thing. He was perhaps three meters away when he stopped. McElroy felt a distinct throbbing, a rapid whump-whump-whump of displaced air passing over him. He turned his head the other way.
A mini-Hellmouth dominated the background nearby. In front of it stood four uniformed soldiers, unmistakably United States Marines. They were all firing, unloading their weapons into the demon. It was quite thoroughly dead when they were done.
Corporal! Have the team arrived? kitten spoke in his mind. The voice was in distinct pain, as though someone were squeezing all the air from kitten's lungs. To have that kind of effect within thoughts…what the hell was kitten going through to do this?
And how! They just smoked a baldrick. Merely thinking the words gave him strength enough stand up. He mused that he must look like Anakin Skywalker at the end of the most recent Star Wars movie, all burnt and freakish. He turned to the four marines and saluted, and they matched him. One of them, stepped forward and began to speak, his facemask wobbling slightly as he jaw moved beneath.
He was still deaf, so he couldn't hear what the Marine was saying. Hurry, please! Send them back! kitten suddenly squealed.
McElroy held up his hand. Pointed to his ears, shook his head. Pointed at the marine, then the portal, and made shooshing motions. The marine stopped, nodded, and passed what looked like an old-fashioned rifle with a wooden stock and a rucksack to McElroy. The four Marines vanished into the portal, which itself closed a second later. He looked at the rifle, recognizing it as an M-1 Garand but with a bigger bore than any Garand he’d ever seen.
You're on your own, Corporal, kitten said, voice weak and dim. Your orders are to evade and survive. You're the among the first we've extracted and armed successfully, so you may be on your own for a while. I'll contact you on a set schedule, its in the rucksack. Understood?
Affirmative. Thank you, kitten. Please pass along word to my family that I'm out and kicking. He didn't get a reply, but that was alright. McElroy was already scanning the area. The wind was throwing dirt into his unprotected eyes, but he could already see better than just a few minutes than before.
The shoreline was deserted, aside from the baldrick corpse. The stream of lava stretched on for miles in each direction, but there was cover further inland, or so it appeared. He squinted; maybe it was a edge of a forest? Or tall grass? Or just a rocky outcrop? His vision was still too bad to tell. At any rate, it would leave him less exposed. He was like a piece of metal in a sand tumbler out here, and the fresh burn wounds were all singing "Ave Maria" as the grime and grit blasted him. They were healing fast though, he could feel his ears returning already.
Placing the Garand and rucksack down for a moment, he went over to the baldrick. It was dead all right, big holes blasted in it and even bigger ones where the bullets had exited the wounds. The monster had nothing he could use, except its trident of course. McElroy hitched his pack to his back, slung the Garand over his shoulder and took off, running up the shore towards what he could now clearly see was a forest.
Throne Room, Belial’s Palace, Tartarus
Belial's throne room was, in many ways a microcosm of his lord's. A mason would note that the columns were carved of adamantine rather than granite, and inlaid with gold and silver rather than sheathed with brass. A soldier's eye would be drawn to the assorted barons in attendance; much of their forms were covered by burnished bronze plates, many set with gaudy jewels. At no other court in hell would a demon show such weakness as needing armor to protect themselves. Here in Tartarus the master proclaimed dominance through superior arms and the servants competed to show their devotion to his principles. A politician would ignore these trappings and focus on the occupant of the throne. The Count's face was lined with the rage and exasperation of a master failed utterly by his servants. The skilled politician would look through this to recognize the desperation of a being that believes it is about to miss its only opportunity for survival.
Euryale's eyes took in all of this as the great doors swung open and admitted her to the room, along with one final similarity to the His Infernal Majesty’s court – the gutted carcass of overseer Oodusjarkethat still cooling on the floor. If Count and King shared anything, it was a healthy respect for the demonic tradition of taking out ones frustrations on ones underlings. That's the fourth one in as many days she thought. The interrogations were proving disastrous, not only had they failed to produce useful information but they had cut production to barely a third of its normal level. The lack of success along with Belial's retribution was crippling the demon's morale.
She strode forward into the throne room, flanked on the left by the long slithering form of Baroness Yulupki. As the most powerful of Tartaruan naga, Belial had charged Yulupki with preparing the chorus that would provide most of the power for the portal ceremonies. The first of the foreign naga had begun to arrive, borne on makeshift litters slung between pairs of Great Beasts, and the baroness's already inflated pride had swelled to new heights as she began to drill her expanded chorus into harmony. Euryale was still technically in command of the portal opening, but it was a strained relationship at best. Yulupki wasted no opportunity to demonstrate her kind's great superiority in psychic strength over the gorgons.
Euryale reached the dais and kneeled perfunctorily, but the naga was even quicker.
"Count Belial, my chorusss stands ready. The firssst of the foreigners are being broken in and I forssseee no problems in producing the level of energy you requesssted.", Yulupki hissed eagerly.
She fancies herself a rival for the count's favor thought Euryale, what a ridiculous notion. For a start, she has completely misjudged his mood.
Sure enough, Belial rose to his feet and rebuffed the naga. "And of what use is your snake pile when we have no idea where to strike? Four days! Half our time gone and still no answers. How difficult could it be? Truly you are the dregs of hell, if I cannot even count on you to wring a few simple facts out of an ample supply of apes!"
Yulupki drew back, coiling upon herself and seemingly genuinely bewildered to be the target of the Count's ranting. "Sssire, we naga are ready to play our role… it was the gorgonsss, sssire, who were supposssed to drag the truth out of the humansss. It was Euryale who promisssed to find their armoriesss for you!"
It was an obvious move and Euryale was ready for it. "Sire, no demon can be blamed for the humans behaving so unreasonably. Something strange has gotten into them, something new, as it has their brethren on Earth. Your genius revealed the source of the earth human's new-found power and the stratagem to eliminate it. I am sure that we can discover the source of the slave's unexpected rebelliousness and counter it."