Fall of Hades by Jeffrey Thomas by Dark Regions Press

Author:Dark Regions Press
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: horror, hell, hades, horror novel, jeffrey thomas, dark regions digital, dark regions press, drp digital, hades novel, novel about hell

23: THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS

Replacing Jay’s eye on the screen was a kind of large, circular pool, more of a gigantic cauldron, Vee decided, its rim raised up a little above a floor of metal mesh, while the bulk of the cauldron’s body was below this raised floor. Spaced along the circumference of the pool were maybe thirty or more of the Demons she had seen in the memories of the man named Adam, with their white, grasshopper-like bodies and small bone horns on their heads. They carried long iron pikes, and her first impression was that they were stirring the steaming, yellowish broth that filled the vat. Well, some were stirring, to break up sludge that formed on the surface, but most were jabbing, as if trying to spear fish. Vee’s eye-brows knitted over her nose as leaned in closer to the screen.

She started when something like a flayed, horribly maimed seal threw itself out of the cauldron onto the mesh floor, its gelatinous body steaming. Two of the insect Demons speared it simultaneously, and levered their pikes to topple the blob-like form back into the broth. The thing thrashed as it sank—or melted—away.

A thick, quivering scum accumulated around the edge of the pool, though there were also floating islands of this. The pikes broke up the scum near the rim, but the islands were beyond reach, and occasionally the beginnings of living forms would rise up from these mounds, flop and writhe, before tumbling down into the liquid again or being reabsorbed into the general mass.

Vee continued to watch, as through a doorway two more Demons arrived dragging a slight young man between them. He was naked, his head hanging limp, all resistance beaten out of him. He barely seemed to notice as they manhandled him to the edge of the pool, and shoved him over the edge.

His body sank, steam rose up and briefly a flailing arm before it slipped back under.

Acid, Vee realized with horror. And those flopping little desperate attempts at life—they were the souls of the Damned, trying to regenerate, but being prevented by the ring of Demons that guarded the acid bath.

“Fuck me,” Vee breathed. “So whose memory is this we’re seeing?”

Jay’s voice from the speaker replied, “This is not a memory; it is a security camera view of events transpiring now, two floors above us.”

Vee hissed something that wouldn’t even become a word.

Jay went on, “This tub was once probably used to dispose of expired or faulty matter. Later, I’m certain it was used during the campaign to liquidate all the humanoid Demons, beginning with the ones in the process of being grown in this city. Even the humanoid staff of Tartarus, themselves. But now, it would appear these drones are trying to diminish the ranks of the Damned, either out of revenge or simply because the Damned in their numbers—and being immortal where they are not—pose a continuing threat to them. It could be, too, that they are merely operating on mindless programming.

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