young man said, “Fuck it, I’m going with him!”
When Ciara saw others were beginning to follow Adam and the young man, she started insinuating her way toward the edge of the line, too. A current began to become diverted from the main current. A mumbling of voices arose.
Of course, it wasn’t long before the Demons took notice. The two nearest drones came scurrying, one with a metal spear in its four sets of pincers and the other with a submachine gun. Seeing the gun, a couple of the mumbling rebels lost their nerve and bolted away from the mass. The Demon with the gun was confused about whether to spray the bolting individuals or the main body of rebels, but decided on the latter and opened up on them, sweeping the gun’s muzzle back and forth. At the same time, the one with the spear jabbed at those ahead of the rebels, who were looking back at the commotion in surprise, lest they break formation, too.
Screams, blood, chaos. Adam felt bullets smash his shoulder and jaw.
His mouth filled with blood, which he swallowed and choked on, and though he knew he couldn’t die he instinctively went into a physical panic. The others behind him bore him up and along, though. He couldn’t see behind him, but he could tell the new current was swelling. It felt like so many bodies were crowding behind him that the entire queue would be diverted in this new direction, away from the high-ranking Demons who waited to appraise their souls.
The Demon’s gun ran out of bullets, and that was when a few of the people broke from the line and charged it, tackled it and brought it down.
Buoyed up in his agony, his left arm hanging useless and his chest painted in blood, Adam saw that one of these attackers was the Asian man, and he rose with the submachine gun in his fists. Someone else had taken a pouch from the Demon, and found fresh magazines for the gun inside it. He helped load one of them into the Asian man’s submachine gun.
After that, everything changed quickly.
One of the official Demons came running with more drones, but it was a mistake for creatures who were themselves mortal. Adam saw the official go down under a volley of bullets, its bony armor cracked and punctured. As it lay kicking and thrashing, Ciara came up beside it, somehow with one of the metal spears—which she thrust through its sack-like head, pinning it to the ground. The creature’s death throes were an electrified frenzy. “Ack, ack, ack-ack!” Ciara said. “Yeah, I seen you motherfuckers in Mars Attack s.”
More guns, spears, bludgeons were appropriated. More people flowed into the new line. People from ahead, in the former line, started turning back to join it as well. And outnumbered as they were, more Demons fell, not to get back up again as the Damned did.
Adam lost track of Ciara and the Asian man, but others held him up as they moved ahead. For lack of any particular direction, they marched toward that city looming on the horizon, perhaps because it was at least somewhat terrestrial in appearance. From this remove, at least.
They did not know that this was a city called Tartarus, any more than they knew that the sky above Hades had up until recently been covered over with a curtain of gray clouds, but that these clouds had burned away to reveal the inverted molten sea behind them, as Hades underwent changes that not even the Demons comprehended. The Damned had no idea that this city of Tartarus was one of the principal centers for the mass production of Hell’s Demons. Though, preoccupied as it was with exterminating and reprocessing the older races of Demons, and spawning new ones, Tartarus was just as oblivious to this encroaching army as they were to it. For now, their destination didn’t matter, even if the terrain ahead and the things that dwelt there were terrible. At least, it was the direction they chose.
Soon, the bleeding lessened so that Adam no longer felt suffocated, and the pain diminished to something bearable. His arm
When Ciara saw others were beginning to follow Adam and the young man, she started insinuating her way toward the edge of the line, too. A current began to become diverted from the main current. A mumbling of voices arose.
Of course, it wasn’t long before the Demons took notice. The two nearest drones came scurrying, one with a metal spear in its four sets of pincers and the other with a submachine gun. Seeing the gun, a couple of the mumbling rebels lost their nerve and bolted away from the mass. The Demon with the gun was confused about whether to spray the bolting individuals or the main body of rebels, but decided on the latter and opened up on them, sweeping the gun’s muzzle back and forth. At the same time, the one with the spear jabbed at those ahead of the rebels, who were looking back at the commotion in surprise, lest they break formation, too.
Screams, blood, chaos. Adam felt bullets smash his shoulder and jaw.
His mouth filled with blood, which he swallowed and choked on, and though he knew he couldn’t die he instinctively went into a physical panic. The others behind him bore him up and along, though. He couldn’t see behind him, but he could tell the new current was swelling. It felt like so many bodies were crowding behind him that the entire queue would be diverted in this new direction, away from the high-ranking Demons who waited to appraise their souls.
The Demon’s gun ran out of bullets, and that was when a few of the people broke from the line and charged it, tackled it and brought it down.
Buoyed up in his agony, his left arm hanging useless and his chest painted in blood, Adam saw that one of these attackers was the Asian man, and he rose with the submachine gun in his fists. Someone else had taken a pouch from the Demon, and found fresh magazines for the gun inside it. He helped load one of them into the Asian man’s submachine gun.
After that, everything changed quickly.
One of the official Demons came running with more drones, but it was a mistake for creatures who were themselves mortal. Adam saw the official go down under a volley of bullets, its bony armor cracked and punctured. As it lay kicking and thrashing, Ciara came up beside it, somehow with one of the metal spears—which she thrust through its sack-like head, pinning it to the ground. The creature’s death throes were an electrified frenzy. “Ack, ack, ack-ack!” Ciara said. “Yeah, I seen you motherfuckers in Mars Attack s.”
More guns, spears, bludgeons were appropriated. More people flowed into the new line. People from ahead, in the former line, started turning back to join it as well. And outnumbered as they were, more Demons fell, not to get back up again as the Damned did.
Adam lost track of Ciara and the Asian man, but others held him up as they moved ahead. For lack of any particular direction, they marched toward that city looming on the horizon, perhaps because it was at least somewhat terrestrial in appearance. From this remove, at least.
They did not know that this was a city called Tartarus, any more than they knew that the sky above Hades had up until recently been covered over with a curtain of gray clouds, but that these clouds had burned away to reveal the inverted molten sea behind them, as Hades underwent changes that not even the Demons comprehended. The Damned had no idea that this city of Tartarus was one of the principal centers for the mass production of Hell’s Demons. Though, preoccupied as it was with exterminating and reprocessing the older races of Demons, and spawning new ones, Tartarus was just as oblivious to this encroaching army as they were to it. For now, their destination didn’t matter, even if the terrain ahead and the things that dwelt there were terrible. At least, it was the direction they chose.
Soon, the bleeding lessened so that Adam no longer felt suffocated, and the pain diminished to something bearable. His arm
Similar Books
