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Baphomet sheathes his knives like a kid who has to put back the cookies he stole before dinner.
Shax says, “I still don’t trust him. You said he’s involved with the Kissi. They don’t have a stake in this fight. Why would they come?”
I look up at the sky.
“Why don’t you ask them yourself?”
Shax and the others follow my gaze.
Something bursts through the burning clouds. It comes in a long solid line that snakes from the clouds. It spreads out, staining the air black. Then the dark breaks apart into a thousand pieces and settles to the ground like a plague of giant locusts. One bug heads straight for us and lands on the edge of the balcony. Josef steps down and bows. Not Aryan supermodel Josef. Kissi Josef.
He looks like an unfinished insect angel. His features are half melted, like sculpted wax. Josef glows faintly with a blue-white light that makes him look like a bottom-of-the-ocean predator. He’s so awful he’s almost beautiful.
He walks to the circle of officers. Stops and waits when he reaches the line. A hole opens up and Josef steps through. When he reaches Semyazah he gives a bow small enough to be a head bob.
“I’m honored to meet Tartarus’s destroyer, General Semyazah.”
Josef offers his hand to shake. Semyazah reaches for it. It’s a pure act of will. It will be inexcusably rude if he doesn’t arninÈnd Josef will read it as fear, not disgust. The general barely gets through it.
“Did you get the battle plans to the right people?” I ask Semyazah.
He nods, trying to make the comment look casual.
“As best as we can spread the new strategy to so many in so little time. We’ll know soon enough if it’s worked.”
“A new plan?” asks Josef. “Why have you changed your attack so close to battle?”
He’s suspicious. I don’t have to be able to touch his mind to see that.
Semyazah says, “Because Mason Faim is no longer a part of this battle. You are. That changes how we deploy our troops.”
“And how is that, General?”
“Heaven knows we’re coming, but they don’t know about you. As the Kissi’s leader, you will ride point with Sandman Slim and myself. Your troops will travel in tight formation behind a legion of our infantry. This will hide the Kissi until the last minute. Before we reach Heaven’s gates, our legions will part to reveal you. The shock will allow us to flank Heaven’s battlements and crush its armies between us. Is that clear?”
“As the pristine vacuum of space.”
Semyazah turns to his men.
“And to the rest of you?”
Heads nod. There are noises of agreement.
Semyazah goes to the edge of the balcony. The legions are spread out below him in every direction.
He shouts, “Release the hellhounds!”
There’s a whir like prop planes and clanking like all the garbage cans in L.A. are being pounded on the ground at once. A mechanical hound the size of an elephant walks across the hotel lawn. Soldiers move back and leave a lane for the hounds to pass. Behind the elephant hound, the regular hellhounds come pouring from their pens in the underground garage. They paw the ground and snarl. Brains slosh in spinal fluid within the glass globes that are their heads. That’s how you motivate your troops. Get them anxious to start the war just so they can get away from the dogs.
Out in the street, Unimogs and flatbeds arrive. In regular Hell it would be the big hounds pulling carts loaded with trebuchets, siege towers, and Hellion versions of Roman ballistae. Here it’s trucks pulling cannons, rocket launchers, and mortars. The vehicles have huge animal horns on the front and metal barbs around the body and over the top. I wouldn’t want to have to attack one.
“ItÈght01C;It&9;s time to go, gentlemen,” Semyazah says. “Our fall from Heaven took nine days, but our rise will take mere hours.”
He looks at Josef.
“I’ll meet you downstairs with your army.”
Josef nods, spreads his wings, and launches himself from the balcony.
