The Unification Chronicles: Between Heaven and Hell

by Jeff Kirvin

  "And find me another interrogation subject."

  Daniel walked out of the Interrogation Chamber, closing the door behind him.

  Updates

  Daniel sat in Marie Motumbo's office and tried to think of a way to put a positive spin on the way things had gone. Motumbo spoke before he could think of anything.

  "I have to admit, Colonel, I'm a little disappointed."

  So was Daniel. In the three weeks since the incident with Uzziel, things had gone no better for his team. “Yes, ma'am. We are too. We've interrogated three demons so far, and none of them has told us anything important. If we don't get something soon, we're going to have to write off this whole method of inquiry."

  Motumbo got up and stood by her office window, staring out into space. It was something Daniel had often seen her do when she had something important on her mind.

  "Daniel?” she asked.

  "Yes, ma'am?"

  She turned back to face him. “Drop the ‘ma'am’ for now, okay? I just want to talk person to person."

  "Sure, Marie. What's on your mind?"

  "How are we doing? Really?"

  "What do you mean?” Daniel asked.

  Marie began to pace. “I sit up here in this office all day and orchestrate a global assault against inhuman monsters. That's my job, and I think I do it well. But I never really get out in the field anymore. I know what's going on in this war only by the progress reports I read. That, and the newspapers."

  She stopped and leaned against her desk, facing Daniel. “And what I read scares me. Things get worse out there every day, more hysteria, more innocent people dead or ostracized, with no end in sight. You walk the streets every day, so I want your opinion. How are we doing?"

  Daniel eased back in his chair and gave it some thought. “Well, we're making headway. We know there's a finite number of them, so each one we take out, no matter how long it takes, is one step closer."

  "That's just what worries me, Daniel. It's taking too long. Demons have always been agents of chaos, and chaos is just what they're getting right now. I'm beginning to fear that by the time we destroy the last demon, they will have already won."

  Daniel stood up and straightened his uniform. “That's not going to happen. We'll find Hell soon, and when we do, we can end this once and for all."

  Instead of responding, Marie Motumbo turned and stared out the window again. Daniel left her alone with her thoughts in the silent office.

  Susan had hit paydirt. At least, she thought she did. She'd been spending most of her time following up on Sal's lead, doing an in depth study of the hysteria and the people it affected.

  In the hundreds of highly publicized accusations of demonic ties and sympathies, almost all of them, if you dug deep enough, could be connected to one man.

  Senator Timothy Phillips.

  Susan had suspected as much. Over the last few months, she'd literally gotten sick of reading his name on her nightly newscasts. To suspect was one thing however, now she had proof.

  Susan got up from the desk in her apartment and walked to the window. What could she do about it? As far as she could tell, Phillips had done nothing technically wrong; no laws had been broken, no official rules of the Senate stepped on. Phillips had personally done nothing but make suggestions, inferences.

  Inferences that were quickly whipping the public into a paranoid frenzy. The man had to be stopped. Susan had always been taught that the news media was not a place to air personal issues, and she was a deep believer in journalistic objectivity, but Sal was right. She was probably the only person that could speak out against Phillips and this witch-hunting insanity without being accused of demonic sympathies. Too many people had already lost their livelihoods, or their lives, because someone else accused them of being in league with demons. It had to stop.

  And once again, Susan found herself not just reporting the news, put preparing to make it.

  Timothy Phillips was nearly beside himself with exhilaration. He had just received all the necessary permits and authorization to hold a rally against the demons on the Mall in Washington D.C. He was virtually guaranteed maximum press coverage, and he'd already seen to it that a number of stories about highly placed demon sympathizers would break just before the rally. With any luck at all, the publicity from this rally would begin the wave of popularity that swept him into the White House.

  There came a knock at his office door.

  "Come in."

  John walked in, carrying a tray with cups and a coffeepot. “Your coffee, sir."

  Phillips waved a dismissive hand. “Just set it down anywhere."

  As John placed the tray gingerly on Phillips’ desk, he said, “Great news about the rally."

  Phillips sat back in his chair. He loved talking about his accomplishments. “Yes, yes it is. How's that speech coming?” Although Phillips selected the topics and major themes of his public speeches, it was more often than not John that wrote the actual words. He seemed to have a gift with the kind of fiery, inspirational writing Phillips needed so much these days.

  "Very well, sir. Another draft or two and it'll be ready."

  "Wonderful. That will be all, John."

  With a submissive nod of his head, John Williams left the office.

  Phillips turned his chair so he could stare out his window, the view overlooking the Mall with the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument visible in the distance. One day soon, Phillips thought, all this will be mine.

  Daniel made his way on foot through the streets of New York, deep in thought. He'd decided to walk back to the temporary headquarters his team had set up so he could figure out a course of action. It was obvious that the interrogation idea was a wash. Even when he managed to restrain himself and conduct the questioning rationally and methodically, the demons simply wouldn't talk. Not to him. Not to a human.

  And time was running short, perhaps shorter than even Marie understood. The world was quickly polarizing into two distinct camps, and Daniel could tell just by the way people looked at him on the streets which they fell into.

  Some saw the cobalt blue of his DTF uniform and smiled, maybe even added a bit of spring to their step. They were the people Timothy Phillips spoke to, the people who, like Daniel and every member of the DTF, felt that the demons were the greatest threat in the history of mankind and that they had to be wiped out, whatever the cost.

  Only Daniel wasn't sure just how much of that he believed anymore.

  The primary reason for his doubt was the look of the others he saw on the streets. People that scowled at him openly, or muttered “witch-hunter” under their breath. Often accused of being somehow in league with the demons if they aired their views too openly, these were the people that Marie was concerned about. While the vast majority of them held no love in their hearts for the demons, they opposed the “fanatical methods” used in the demons’ extermination. They felt no threat was worth the revocation of their basic human rights.

  As long as the demons existed, the people of the world would be thusly divided. And as long as that division existed, the tension would continue to threaten a fragile world peace it had taken centuries to build.

  And so Daniel had to find a way to destroy the demons he had inadvertently discovered. Before the world fell into chaos and terror, before the demons won.

  As Daniel walked into their makeshift headquarters, an old firehouse, Roberto flagged him down. “Hey, boss! You're just in time. You have a phone call."

  Daniel walked over and took the phone. “Who is it?” he asked Roberto.

  "He wouldn't say, but he said you'd know him."

  "Hello?” Daniel said into the phone.

  "You're a hard man to reach these days, Daniel,” said Uriel's voice on the other end of the line. “I think we need to talk."

  Inferno

  Deep inside a supposedly abandoned missile silo in the Nevada desert north of Las Vegas, Satan waited. The demon sat in a large room lined with television screens, eac
h tuned to a different channel and all muted. In the glow of the monitors, Satan looked young, like a human in his early thirties. His full, black hair was swept back from his forehead, accentuating his high cheekbones and aquiline nose. His azure eyes held a look of intense concentration as he absorbed information from the screens, which randomly switched channels every thirty seconds.

  "My Lord,” called a deep voice from the edge of the room.

  Satan snapped out of his trance and hit a button on the armrest of his chair, blanking all the screens at once. He looked to the doorway and saw Beelzebub, who had grown a full head of ebony hair since Cho had released pictures of him to the humans.

  "You wished to see me?” Beelzebub asked.

  "Yes,” Satan replied with a charming smile. “Take a look."

  He turned on the screens again. “Look at them, old friend. They're frightened. Chaotic. Even in the broadcasts that don't address the ‘Demonic Threat’ directly, there is increased sexual imagery, more violence. Every single one of these screens practically screams ‘War.’ We're winning."

  Satan rose from his chair. “Walk with me,” he said.

  The two demons left the monitor room and began an informal tour of the stronghold they called “Hell.” The missile silo had been expanded significantly during the conversion process and was now an underground fortress the size of a medium sized town. More than twenty stories deep and nearly a mile across, Hell was the focal point for the world's demonic activity, and the temporary home for nearly half the demons, at least until the hunts blew over.

  "Overall, I'm very pleased,” Satan said as they passed the library, a hall of books that rivaled the Library of Congress, except that Hell's library had quite a few ancient tomes that could be found nowhere else on earth. “Only one thing troubles me."

  "The DTF?” Beelzebub guessed.

  Satan chuckled. “No, my friend. For the moment, they're more help than hindrance. As long as they exist, the tension between fanatical demon haters and liberal human rights activists remains high. Without knowing it, they work in our favor. No, my worry is an individual human."

  "Timothy Phillips, then,” Beelzebub said. He hated it when Satan played his little guessing games, but he could do little about it.

  "No, he too serves our purpose, though in a very roundabout fashion. He makes people afraid, and I want them afraid. Besides, when he's no longer useful to us, it will be easy enough to dispose of him. No, our problem is his nemesis."

  Beelzebub cast a sidelong glance at the power station as they passed. Hell ran on geothermal energy, and the power system took up nearly a quarter of their space. Satan often joked about Hell being powered by the “fires of the underworld.” Beelzebub racked his brain, but he had no clue to whom his boss referred. “His nemesis?"

  "Yes. A young newscaster named Susan Richardson. I'm sure you've heard of her."

  Beelzebub merely gave Satan a sour look.

  "At first,” the head demon continued, “she was of some use to us, in that in publishing that fool Zagam's files, she stirred the fires of fear and unrest that we'd let die down. Our exposure actually helped our cause, as it was a destabilizing influence."

  Beelzebub sighed. He'd heard this a million times, but The Prince of Lies loved to talk.

  "Now Miss Richardson seems to be undoing what she's done,” Satan added.

  "How so?"

  "She's taken it upon herself to be the voice of reason in the face of Phillips’ tirades. She's speaking out to anyone who'll listen about the dangers of paranoia, the evils of fanaticism."

  "A lot of people are saying those things,” Beelzebub observed.

  "Yes,” Satan said, stopping at the Pit. A vertical shaft where the missile used to be, it ran the entire depth of the complex. Satan often stopped at a railing at its edge and peered down into the darkness below. “Yes, a lot of people are indeed saying that. But most of those people don't have the pull Susan Richardson has. She has quickly become one of the most recognized and respected journalists on the planet, largely thanks to us. People are listening to what she has to say."

  "More than they listen to people like Phillips?"

  "Not yet, but they will soon. And so I have a job for you."

  "If I eliminate her, it will only make her a martyr."

  "Maybe, maybe not. I doubt her message is strong enough yet to carry on without her. It will be soon, but not yet.

  "In two days, Phillips is holding a rally on the Mall. I'm quite sure Richardson will attend. You are to eliminate her, publicly, during the rally. Make it as messy as you like, for the cameras. With any luck, her death at the hands of a very recognizable demon will bolster Phillips’ point, and help spread the chaos we need so badly, if we are to defeat the angels and fulfill our calling.

  "Have you any questions?"

  Beelzebub bowed his head. “No, my Lord.” He was tempted to ask Satan what to do about the DTF forces that were sure to be in attendance, but the second in command of all the demons was expected to be able to handle himself. Beelzebub turned and walked away, leaving his master standing at the edge of the abyss and staring into the darkness.

  An Old Friend

  As the sun set on Washington D.C., Daniel wrapped his coat a little tighter. He stood on the broad marble steps of the Jefferson Memorial, one of the city's smaller, more private monuments. It was his favorite spot in the whole city. In the spring, the trees that lined the tidal basin in front of the domed memorial would be pink with cherry blossoms. Daniel had often spent many of the few hours he wasn't working as a paramedic reclining on the marble steps or sitting under one of those trees, reading. On the days he actually walked past the great columns and into the monument itself, he never failed to be awed by the Thomas Jefferson's words on the walls. He dearly missed the quiet, anonymous peace of those days.

  "Cold, Daniel?"

  Daniel turned and saw the archangel Uriel, looking exactly the same as when they'd first met. Same brown hair, same chiseled, ageless looks, same battered leather jacket and jeans. The angel looked nothing like his legend, that of the angel who stood at the gates of Eden with the flaming sword. He looked like any other human in Washington. Centuries of blending in at work, Daniel thought. “Uriel. It's good to see you again."

  Uriel slapped Daniel on the back and they began to walk slowly around the tidal basin. “You too, Daniel. You and Susan have both made names for yourselves. I sometimes like to think I had a little part in your success."

  "More than a little. But you could have done more. Why did you and the other angels disappear after the story broke?"

  Uriel reached up, broke a small twig off a tree and toyed with it. “We felt it was your time to shine. We didn't want to get in the way. And we felt that were we to take too prominent a role, you might not have driven the demons underground, so to speak."

  "Why is that?"

  Uriel stopped and looked Daniel in the eye. “If we'd been fully present when the news of our and the demons’ existence broke, the demons might have felt so threatened that they would have declared all out war on both of us. As it was, they thought, wrongly perhaps, that they could handle you on their own. By bowing out we may have saved millions of lives."

  Daniel started walking again. “If that's true, what's so important to bring you out now?"

  "Angels aren't infallible, Daniel. We're beginning to wonder if we did the right thing. I've kept up with current events. Even as you wipe them out, the demons are winning. Chaos, paranoia and hysteria run rampant in your society, and it's even worse in the less developed parts of the world. A number of angels, Gabriel chief among them, are concerned that by the time the demons are wiped out, there may not be enough of human civilization left for us to guide. We're worried that your crusade may already be a lost cause."

  Has he been talking to Marie? Daniel wondered. “Yeah, we've been kind of concerned about that, too. We've already come to a decision about it."

  "Really? And that would be?"

 
; For a moment Daniel wondered whether or not he should explain his mission to the angel. He really knew next to nothing about Uriel, other than the fact that Uriel had helped him, Susan and Jeff just when they needed it the most. “My team is on special assignment. We're supposed to locate Hell and kill Satan. With him down, a strike force might be able to take down the demons’ nerve center. You wouldn't happen to know the location of Hell, would you?"

  Uriel laughed. “No, the demons generally make sure we angels aren't privy to that kind of information. But I could try to find out for you."

  Daniel almost couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Really?"

  "Daniel, it's the least I can do. For reasons I hope you never know."

  Daniel looked around. Full dark had fallen, and the lights on the memorial made it look more majestic than usual. “Thanks, Uriel. I really—"

  As he turned back, he saw the angel walking away. Must be slipping in his old age, Daniel thought. We never used to see him leave.

  As if on cue, Uriel turned around and walked back to Daniel. “I almost forgot,” the angel said. “The other thing I had to say. I received word this morning that Beelzebub is in town."

  "Here?” Daniel asked. “In D.C.?"

  "Yes. Phillips’ rally on the Mall is tomorrow afternoon, and if you ask me, Beelzebub's arrival the day before the demons’ biggest human antagonist speaks to the nation's media is a little too coincidental. You may want to be there."

  "Understood."

  "Good luck, Daniel. Until we meet again.” The angel turned and walked away. No trick disappearances anymore, Daniel noticed. He merely walked into the night.

  With much on his mind, Daniel did the same.

  Shortly after Daniel and Uriel departed, a man neither had noticed appeared from behind a tree. He made a few notes in a small spiral notepad, then walked quickly towards downtown.

  Point/Counterpoint

  When Phillips was ready to speak the next afternoon, Daniel and his team were ready. The podium was set up on a huge metal stage not far from the Washington Monument. Daniel had people set up all around, including Heinrich, his best shooter, in the Monument itself. Daniel was out of sight on the stage, only ten meters from the podium. He began a final check over his radio.