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Part 7
Giles felt slightly uncomfortable and out of place in the briefing room, surrounded by the members of Elisa Hunter’s black-garbed Covert Action Team. The Dark Angels, she called them. The seven members who had been chosen for the operation looked to Giles as if they’d been recruited from Central Casting for a Tom Clancy film, all square jaws and solid muscles. And all very, very polite to Willow, Angel and him. Polite to the letter of their instructions from Hunter, no doubt.The Dark Hunter walked into the room behind the air of cool authority she projected so very well. She took her place behind the podium and said, “Lights.”
The lights dimmed.
She fingered a slim remote control and part of the wall behind her slid away to reveal a large screen. She toggled it to life and brought up a picture of a blasted, cold-looking wasteland of sharp mountains and barren valleys.
Hunter turned back to her audience. “Good afternoon. I’m going to make this briefing short because we, ladies and gentlemen, are out of time. At oh-six-hundred this morning, Angel, Sergeant Aston, Corporal Rodriguez, and myself entered plane Alpha-Two through the Romanovsky Gate, synching to a phase beacon placed there by the entity known to us as Lillith Prophet. Our purpose was to reconnoiter the Crossover Zone, determine the integrity of the information supplied by Prophet, and get an exact fix on the location of the C. Z. We have done so.”
She pointed out a tall, jagged mountain with a laser pointer. “This feature has been identified as Deathspire.”
The red dot shifted to the other end of the screen, to a low, massive rock formation. “And this pretty little mesa is Lucifer’s Anvil.”
The image changed to another view from the Crossover Zone. The dot hovered over a huge frozen lake in a wide valley. “This is Magog’s Cauldron. Taking gyro-compass bearings on these three landmarks places the C. Z. an eight hour march from Pandemonium, on a bearing of oh-two-seven, using Deathspire as our zero degree vector.”
“We also scouted the C. Z. out to a radius of a kilometer, and discovered something very disturbing when we ascended a nearby rise to get a better look at things.”
The image changed again. What it showed prompted a round of muttering among the commandos, and caused Willow to look uncertainly at Giles. On the plain in the picture, hundreds of small campfires stretched into the distance. The figures gathered around them were nothing but aggregates of black specks at the distance the photo was taken, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out what the picture showed. Scores of unit pennants showed black, red, and green against the frozen landscape.
“Boys and girls,” said Hunter, “by now these troops could be within a few kilometers of Pandemonium. This is what’s coming through the Threshold if we don’t put a stop to it.”
“Man, it’s always something in this outfit,” grumbled a very large, very intimidating, very bald man whose name patch identified him as Hudson.
“You have something to add, Hudson?” asked Hunter.
Hudson smiled, revealing a vast expanse of flawless enamel. “No, ma’am. I’m guessing ‘holy shit’ ain’t exactly adding a whole new dimension to the discussion.”
“Guess not.”
Hunter let the screen’s image burn itself into the minds of all those assembled, then said with finality, “I want everyone on the strike team in the vault with their gear at fifteen-thirty hours. This is it, people. We’re going to Hell.”
* * *
“We’ve got a problem,” said Jenny.
The gentle rasping sound of whetstone against steel stopped as Buffy paused in her sharpening of Slayer. She looked at Jenny, who was framed in the doorway. The harsh, cold light of day surrounded her like an aura.
“I’ve noticed over the years that ‘we’ve got a problem’ seems to be the favorite thing for people to say to me. Not ‘Let’s go for ice cream, Buffy,’ or ‘How about dinner and a movie, Buffy?’ No, I always get, ‘We’ve got a problem.’ Exactly when did I become the human Apollo 13?”
Jenny was looking at her as if she had gone slightly mad, which was entirely possible, Buffy conceded.
“I’m afraid Rocky Road is going to have to wait. We really do have a problem, and it’s serious.”
“What is it?” Buffy asked.
“I think it’s better if you see this for yourself.”
Buffy followed her out of the room and down the frigid street to an imposing stone building that appeared to have once been an edifice of some grandeur and importance, but which had long ago gone to ruin like the rest of this part of Pandemonium. A dangerous-looking staircase zig-zagged up one wall to a railed-in balcony at the top.
Jenny led them up the stairs without hesitation and out onto the balcony, which afforded a fine view over the city walls.
“Look,” said Jenny, gesturing to the valley beyond.
She looked. There, beyond the gates of the city, marching in endless, dark columns spiked with spears and axes and swords, were all the armies of Hell. And they were converging on Pandemonium. On the Mephisto Threshold.
Buffy felt a chill run deep within her, felt a great frozen rift open somewhere inside. The scene that lay before her was all her nightmares of Armageddon distilled into one dark, terrifying, and very real vision.
“We just ran out of time,” she said.