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Mammon sat in front of the large 3D cinema. He’d brought down one wall and was just staring in at the children. When one tried to run, he grabbed them and set them back inside near one of the seats. It didn’t look malevolent; except I knew he was keeping them there to feed off their fear of him. They would probably all need therapy. A boy of maybe eight or nine, certainly not much older than Ariel, shot a fireball at Mammon, who laughed as it struck him. A second kid also attempted it. He was younger and his fireball was small, weak, and pathetic. I decided the boys were most likely brothers. Mammon laughed at the second, weaker fireball. I felt Jerome next to me, gathering magic I knew Mammon was unlikely to laugh off. The large hell prince hadn’t noticed us walking up on him, and I took a moment to just stand and gaze upon him.
Mammon was kind of pretty. He had extremely dark and reflective blue skin. Sometimes it looked blue, sometimes purple, and sometimes black. It was soft but made of scales that had a metallic, glossy shine to them. His horns were at least as long as I was tall, in a lighter blue than his skin. About halfway up, they swept back and then up in a slight curve backward over his head. He also had big, grey double-iris eyes. At that moment it hit me that all the previous boxes were practice runs. They were trying to perfect making them more powerful and capable of doing more than the original boxes were. While I now understood why all of the boxes happened as they did, I didn’t know the purpose. What did they want to achieve by causing this much chaos and devastation? I didn’t know if this was the apex of the attacks or just another trial.
Jerome released a fireball at Mammon, and the hell prince rocked backward as it slammed into him. It opened a gaping wound in his chest and blood flowed from it in nearly black streams. Mammon turned hate-filled eyes on us and bellowed a deep, earsplitting roar. Considering how horrifying a hell prince is in the flesh, I realized I needed to do something kind of flashy to soothe the terrified children and assure them that he was good and gone. I gave a pointed look to Jerome. He nodded and I heard music tinkle somewhere distantly. I walked up to Mammon and put my hands on his leg. He glared at me, and for a moment I was pretty sure he was going to eat me. Then he relaxed under my touch and I pushed magic into him. The wound began to heal as the body blinked out of existence to the accompaniment of a loud PEW-PEW-PEW and a sharp snapping sound. Mammon was gone. Jerome and I herded the 20 or so children together, and we all jogged as a group to the exit. I released them into the custody of several police officers and told them Mammon was gone.
“Do you have extra walkie-talkies?” Jerome asked. “It would be easier to communicate amongst ourselves as well as with the emergency responders if we had walkie-talkies.” An officer nodded, went to a cruiser and opened the trunk. Inside was three or four walkie-talkies, and I wondered why as he brought out two of them and handed them to us. He got on his own radio and told everyone to clear channel two. He took our radios and fiddled with the dial on top.
“Channel two is all yours; we might listen in, but you can talk on it to each other. I’ll gather up some more and as rescuers bring people out, we’ll hand them out.”
“Thanks,” I told him. Jerome and I turned back toward the park. Once in the gates I said, “When this is over, I will order a bunch and keep them at the office for situations like this.”
“Cool,” Jerome said. “What do we do next?”
“We go find Belgaphor,” I told him. A ninguka slithered past about ten feet from where we stood. Jerome exploded it.
“I need to check out these new boxes,” Jerome said to me.
“Shit,” I sighed. He did need to investigate a box or two. We’d planned on doing it at the office, but we needed it done now. I also needed to exorcise Belgaphor before any more hell princes came through. They got stronger as more of them crossed, and Beelzebub was already on Earth. If his soul wasn’t stuck in the body of a toddler, I would have been concerned he was actually here in the park, but since toddlers can’t travel without their parents, it seemed unlikely. “You’re absolutely right, we need walkie-talkies for the office. We’ll find Remiel and I’ll send you with him to investigate the boxes. I’ll take someone else with me to deal with Belgaphor.” I texted Remiel, Raphael, and Azrael to meet me at the gate where Dad was parked.
Jerome and I waited. We exorcised anything that came past us and kept count. I’d sent back three demons of varying sizes, three ninguka, a chupacabra, and made a big mess exploding a bigfoot. As I stared at the remains of the bigfoot, a cinnamon bird snuck up on us and attempted to put eggs in us. I moved out of its way, but the talon still caught my clothes. It missed Jerome by at least three feet, which made me feel pretty good about him being an awkward, big footed, gangly teenager. He had moves and magic; he was probably better suited to combat Stygian wildlife than I was.
My father and uncles each took a walkie-talkie from the police officer now standing just outside the gate. I sent Remiel and Raphael with Jerome to investigate the boxes in the park, and I took Azrael with me to find Belgaphor. We passed Gabriel, who was chasing a pack of imps, and told him in passing to go get a walkie-talkie from the main gate. He said he would, and we continued to Belgaphor as Gabriel continued his pursuit of the imps.
We had to stop twice, once to exorcise everyone’s favorite demon, Dantalian, and again to save a yeti from being totally devoured by a couple of chupacabras. We tried to send the yeti back across and he refused to go. He insisted on following us to Belgaphor. We didn’t have the time or the skill to argue with him. I did send the chupacabras across, though.
Belgaphor looked terribly unimpressed when Azrael, the yeti, and I found him sitting under a ride that had swings about 40 feet in the air. There were still people on it. I suspected the hell prince had come through and immediately taken up residence under the ride to prevent it from being evacuated. Belgaphor was 20 feet tall. The lowest of the swings hung maybe ten feet above his head and every so often, he would reach up and swat at them, causing a handful of swings to sway out and the ride mechanics to lurch forward a couple of feet, putting new people over top of him. A new series of screams would erupt and even I could feel the fear pouring out of the riders. I must admit I didn’t think I’d be able to contain my fear either if it were me. Belgaphor got bigger as the shrieking continued. The fact that he was able to grow larger as he collected power from the fear he induced had never ever crossed my mind as a possibility. I was surprised by it.
“How do you want to do it?” Azrael asked.
“It’s easiest if I lay my hands on him. It takes less magic, anyway” I said, frowning. I took a couple of steps toward Belgaphor, and he moved with more energy than I’d ever seen him exert before as he swatted at me.
“Go away, exorcist!” the hell prince said, glaring at me. I took another step forward and a giant hand reached out for me. He picked me up by the arm, lifting me just a few feet off the ground, and gave me a hard shake that dislocated my shoulder and rattled my brain. Holy fuck! I thought, thinking he was going to try to eat me. Whatever his intent, though, it ended when the yeti stomped over to him, grabbed his leg and bit into it as hard as he could, grinding his jaws back and forth. Belgaphor dropped me and howled. I sat on my butt on the ground for a moment, and Azrael suddenly rushed the hell prince. Belgaphor swatted him, catching him with the back of his large hand, and Azrael soared through the air. Flapping his wings madly, he managed to control his arc and landed some 50 feet from where he was just a moment or two earlier. I touched Belgaphor’s naked thigh and pushed as much magic as I dared. Sometimes when hell princes were being well fed, they could use your own magic against you. I didn’t want to be hit with the spell of exorcism, so I worked it carefully and was even more careful pushing magic into him. Belgaphor exploded. Guts and gore flew outward with such force it knocked both the yeti and I off our feet; it even flew upward onto the riders in their swings and made the ride wobble crazily.
“We need rescue units at the Flying Swings!” I shouted into the walkie-talkie. It wasn’t ideal, but something had to be done before it fell over and squashed everyone. I stood up and looked at myself. I couldn’t identify everything that covered me and I didn’t want to. The yeti held out his hand to me as he sat on the ground near me. I took it and sent him across the Divide. The walkie crackled and I heard Jerome say, “I need a coven at the flying swings immediately.” I wasn’t sure what a coven could do, but I also didn’t know how we were going to get everyone off the swings; they were strapped in lying on their bellies. The center metal tube that supported the large rotating circular disk on top was making strange noises. Flying up to rescue everyone would put those flying in danger, as the swings moved in every direction and the metal continued to pop and screech. A part of my brain envisioned the entire thing toppling over, killing everyone as they plunged 40 feet in a dizzying tangle of wires, cables, and chains. I fought my brain’s attempts to show the metal support tube and disk crushing people as Jerome ran up next to me. Penelope was only a few steps behind him. He had done magic with her before; she was in charge of Valerie’s magic healing sessions. Jerome grabbed her hand the moment she was up to him and with his other he grabbed me.
“Coven, host, it doesn’t matter,” he told us. “Just concentrate on the swings unbuckling themselves and the people floating down to the ground.” I did as I was told, and more witches and wizards joined us. As more joined, I felt the first of the safety straps unbuckle and the first person released began to float slowly to the ground. When there were 13 witches and wizards and myself, power circles appeared below our feet and I felt all the straps begin to loosen and release the riders. The magic kept them from becoming ensnared in the swaying swings and loosening cables. The ride gave another screech and the disk on top began to wobble from side to side. I wondered if we could get them all to the ground and out of the way before the entire thing crashed down. The first person hit the ground with their feet and immediately started to run toward the giant exit gate that was about a quarter mile away. More people immediately followed and soon there was a stampede for the exits. I couldn’t blame them. They were covered in Belgaphor yuck and there was a ride in the process of crumbling. I would have run, too.
A pack of gremlins appeared from somewhere not directly in my line of sight and swarmed the ride, shimmying up the smooth metal support in the center of it all. About halfway up, several began sinking their sharp, tough teeth into the metal, filling the air with more shrieks and screeches. The last ten or so people hit the ground and ran.
I considered the best way to send the gremlins back across the Divide, and before I made a decision, the disk on top fell off, crashing into the ground with so much force that it cracked the asphalt. We felt the earth shake beneath our feet. I was about to push magic to get rid of the gremlins when the support broke and the top half came crashing down. This time the asphalt didn’t just crack underneath it; cracks raced along the black surface in all directions, releasing the smell of oil and breaking the asphalt in small, irregular shapes as it joined existing cracks from normal usage and weathering. We stared at the mess, and I sent the gremlins back to the Stygian. As I did, we heard more screams. Louder screams coupled with a massive explosion that didn’t just shake the ground, but made the air vibrate and warble. I felt it in my ears and along the short hairs at the back of my neck, which stood up at the sound. Fan-fucking-tabulous.