Armageddon

Chapter Forty Seven

Sheffield Cathedral, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Lakheenahuknaasi flapped clumsily over the vast human metropolis, making her way to the place where she could sense the half-open portal pushing gently against the fabric of this plane. She was freezing, aching and frustrated. The city was supposed to be a great engine of industry, but she could see no great fires or forges, nor could she hear the ringing of hammers on anvils. Instead there was an endless jumble of tightly packed stone buildings, tiny ones with peaked roofs and much larger boxy ones. Ahead, surrounding the place where the portal was lodged great towers thrust into the sky. Impossibly, many of them seemed to be made out of glass. No; as she got closer, Lakheenahuknaasi sensed that they had skeletons of iron. She shuddered. Humans were far too fond of iron.

The gorgon sited the spot where the embryonic portal was floating and smiled faintly at the irony. Invisible to the naked eye in its current state, the inter-dimensional nexus was hovering perhaps a hundred yards above a large temple to Yahweh, the walls of which were awash with the light of human magic. Lakeenah blinked. What she had taken to be an outbuilding next to the temple revealed itself to be a giant metal snake. As she watched it whined loudly and began to hauled its segmented bulk away into the city. At this point she had ceased even trying to comprehend the purpose behind the bizarre human constructs.

In truth she was not sure where else to put the portal. The horrid snow had stopped, but the low clouds and mist had kept visibility down to a couple of miles. She had risked one quick, wide circle around the temple and spied a few structures that appeared to be large chimneys, but no smoke issued from them. Lakeenah settled on destroying as many of the huge towers as possible. They seemed more like palaces than castles; undoubtedly they were occupied by the city's elite, the overseers and the most skilled artisans. Even this was not straightforward. The terrain was quite hilly and if she placed the portal in the wrong spot the lava might flow around the towers without destroying them. She settled on a monolithic black tower that stood proudly above and a little apart from the rest. It was sited on a low hill and at the top of a slight groove, which she hoped would act as a channel leading straight to the rest of the towers.

Lakheenahuknaasi finished her approach and began a slow descending glide over the temple. Bracing herself for the pain, she prepared to reach out with her psychic power to grasp the nexus. The familiar stinging sensation washed over her wings and suddenly she had it. Pumping her wings with grim determination, she strained to drag the nexus away from the temple. Immediately she could feel her queen's powerful presence.

“I have it. I am moving the nexus… into position.” Lakheenahuknaasi exclaimed, with the mental equivalent of a gasp.

Euryale replied with a curt “Good. Do not fail me now.”

Lakheenahuknaasi sensed the portal swelling as the naga back in Hell poured energy into it. She had the target in sight, but it seemed agonizingly far away. The pent up psychic force was building to monstrous proportions and she had to switch from 'pulling' the nexus to 'pushing' against it to prevent it opening prematurely. At last she was almost over the tower.

“Ready!” she shouted into the ether, hoping Euryale sensed her over the human din and howling energy of the portal itself. She released the nexus, half-folded her wings and dropped away from the tower, racing to escape the literal piece of hell that was about to be unleashed.

MD-902 G-SYPS (South Yorkshire Police Air Support Unit)

Peter Taranaski swung the helicopter around in a lazy semi-circle, ready for another slow pass over Hillsborough. Police work didn't pay well, but it was a lot more interesting than playing air taxi to overpaid executives or spending all day creeping along power lines. Better yet, there was the regular thrill of accomplishing the mission, protecting the public and nabbing the bad guys. Back in the army air corps, it had mostly been an endless series of make-believe exercises. Even in weather like this, he was usually eager to take to the Explorer up, but when the scramble order came through he was expecting yet another false alarm. Now that command had confirmed baldrick activity in the peaks the tension in the cabin was palpable.

In the left seat Sergeant Oliver Webster was staring intently at his main monitor, which was showing a thermal image of the streets below. The younger man had quickly gained a reputation for competence and calmly directing ground units through crisis situations. In Pete's opinion though, the sergeant took life a bit too seriously; in particular, his jokes were usually met with a disapproving silence. That was one good thing about the war; the second observer position had been replaced by a couple of heavily armed squaddies, who did seem to appreciated his one-liners.

The RT crackled. “Sierra Yankee Nine Nine, new baldrick sighting reported, single flyer low over the town hall, over.”

Webster was quick to respond. “Acknowledged. We'll head over there now. We've covered Hillsborough twice now, nothing to report.” His voice continued over the intercom “Peter, I'd like an orbit of the ring road.”

“Confirmed.” Pete eased the cyclic forward and the aircraft began to pick up speed until it was holding 60 knots. ”I'll take it easy. No sense wasting fuel.”

He looked over at Sergeant Webster, who nodded. Other units were scouring the Peaks for baldrick invaders, they were tasked with rapid response should the demons slip through the net to populated area. That meant maximizing endurance, as they'd do no good if they were down for refueling when the baldricks went on a rampage.

“Sierra Yankee Nine Nine, make that multiple sightings, at least one baldrick over Pond's Forge, priority one, over.”

“Roger control, on our way.” Webster replied. Pete had already dipped the nose and the MD 902 leapt forward, speeding towards the city centre. He cut in on the RT “Have ATC got a blip this time? Over.”

There was a long silence. “Ah, negative Sierra Yankee. They've got some kind of interference though. Radar cover is compromised.”

Sergeant Webster had zoomed the IR camera and had a pulsating speck centered on his monitor. As the helicopter drew closer it took a form reminiscent of a giant long-legged bat. “Baldrick sighted! Single flyer at 600 feet AGL, heading west from cathedral, over.”

The reply was immediate and emphatic. “Say again Sierra Yankee, one baldrick flyer over central Sheffield? We've lost your telemetry.”

Pete had a visual on the baldrick and was maneuvering the helicopter into its rear quarter, staying well back. The Explorer was quieter than most helicopters, primarily due to its lack of a tail rotor, but he was still under no illusions that the baldrick couldn't hear them. He just didn't want to force a confrontation until they were ready.

“Affirmative, baldrick flyer proceeding west towards university at about 50 knots. It's a small one…” Webster's voice trailed off. He had switched back to visual and noticed that the demons wings were glowing with a ghostly blue-white light. Worse, the air beneath the creature was shimmering, as if by heat haze. What the devil was it up to?

“Ack… ledged… alert… intercept com… def..” The duty officer's voice distorted and dropped out. Sergeant Webster flipped channels but the error indicator on the radio panel wouldn't go out. It had to be whatever the demon was doing, if the radar was affected too. Time to make a judgment call.

“Peter, take us up over it for a shot.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Corporal, you're up. Take it down.”

The two riflemen were ready for the order and sprang immediately into action. Private Hughes slammed back the door, while Corporal Sinker heaved his AS50 anti-material rifle onto the pintle mount. The target was easy to make out despite the fog, with the bright glow emanating from its wings… but then the light suddenly went out and the bat-like shape veered off and dropped away. Sinker put his eye to the scope, hoping to line up a shot before the helo started changing position… and then recoiled from a sudden, overpowering rush of heat and light. An impossibly deep, deafeningly loud roar had a moment to pound his ears before the helicopter was sucked into the maelstrom.

The University of Sheffield, 11:26pm GMT

The Arts Tower was a Sheffield landmark, a striking twenty-one story monolith built in the early sixties and still the tallest university building in the British Isles. The midnight black disc of the portal swelled into existence almost directly above the tower, appearing for all the world like a flying saucer from a low-budget sci-fi movie. In the space of an eye-blink a glowing stream of magma had burst out from the disc’s lower surface and begun to plummet towards the building, while from the upper surface a fountain of liquid rock sprayed into the air. A full four seconds passed as the magma blossomed in mid-air; those few onlookers that survived would later report being transfixed by the deadly beauty of the scene. Then the crushing stream smashed into the tower’s west side, driving it into the ground and exploding the opposite side in a spray of fire and shrapnel.

The shockwave created by the magma hitting the ground smashed windows and ruptured eardrums out to over a kilometer. The gas entrained within the rock erupted from confinement, sending clouds of shoking vapor across the city. Half-powered by the gas, half powered by the sheer kinetic energy of the fall, liquid rock splashed out from the impact site, smashing into the lesser tower blocks surrounding the impact point, which immediately began to collapse. After another four seconds the canopy of glowing projectiles formed from the upper spray began to impact on the surrounding area with the force of thousand-pound bombs. The campus vanished into a huge cloud of dust, lit from within by the hellish light of the magma stream. Thousands of tonnes of rock continued to slam into the impact site every second, creating a roar that outclassed even a Saturn rocket launch. The relatively soft ground shook and slipped under the onslaught, leading to further collapses as buildings further out were hit by the deadly combination of tremors and projectiles.