God's Gone AWOL

[5] Lucy and the Lunatic

Xander was zoning out again.

Everyone on the High Council of Hell was crowded around a large strategic map of Earth. Little figures were dotted here and there, each representing a legion of demons or a choir of angels. Wingo was leading the discussion. Every now and again he would scribble some notes across the surface of the map, but for the most part, he was just talking.

"The angelic offensive has now hit out two of the barrier points in the Pentagram of Protection surrounding the Gates of Hell," he said, tapping two spots on North American west coast, "The one up on Mount Waddington and the one on Strange Island. So I propose we draw the Pentagram in and reestablish our North and Northwest points closer to the gates of Hell."

Heaven had seven different gates that connected to the Earthly Realm, all interspersed randomly throughout globe. They were well guarded and often very difficult for anyone except an angel to find, usually carved into an ancient tree or disguised in the doorway of a ruined castle. The angels also changed their locations fairly regularly, so as to ease the chance of discovery. And even if some other type of being did find them, they needed one of the keys just to get inside. Nobody ever bothered trying to invade Heaven on foot. It had been this way since the beginning of time.

Hell was different. Although its exact origins were debatable, the general theory was that Hell was specifically created to house demonkind. The majority of demons firmly believed that God had foreseen The Fall, and had created the realm for the purpose of occupation —although it remained empty for a few billion years. So the real-estate was available when Lucifer first led the revolution in Heaven, and thousands of angels fell and became demons. Even if this theory was correct, it would be hard to admit that God knew of Lucifer's revolution and still did nothing, so there was controversy across the four realms in relation to the subject. Regardless, no matter what God's intentions were at the time of Hell's creation, everyone could at least agree that demons did not belong among the world of mortals. So they had moved in without a hitch.

Except they soon discovered a rather large problem; Hell only had one door. During his reign, Lucifer tried to make more gateways, but as it turned out, tearing open holes in the fabric that separated planes of existence was easier said than done. The closest thing to a door that he ever invented was a small spell for temporary gateways. But it took a heavy amount of power, more than the average demon could spare, and the doorway would collapse in on itself after a few seconds. Really it was only usable by high-powered demons like the Hellbournes. And even then, it was only for emergencies.

So the best the demons could do was set up a good guarding system. By surrounding the gates' location in the Earthly Realm with five heavily-monitored barrier points in the shape of a pentacle, and moving it once every few hundred years just to be sure, Hell was also pretty safe from invasion.

Currently, gates of Hell were positioned in Vancouver, British Columbia.

"What good will that do?" said Eleazar, "If we shrink our barrier lines, we're just letting Heaven beat us around until they're practically sitting on our front door,"

"Okay, well what do you suggest we do?" Wingo asked.

"I suggest we move the gateway to Hell again!"

There was a general noise of protest from the rest of the group, but Eleazar just waved them aside and continued. "The fact that they know our current location is a good enough reason to change it."

Smythe sighed, rubbing the space between her eyebrows.

"Eleazar, in all my years on council, we've only ever had to move the gateway once and that was immediately after Bentley died," she said, "To do it again so soon... It would take too much power. It would cause more trouble for us than it would for the angels."