Various lines of poetry, prose and lyrics are scattered throughout the text and were taken from the works of Geoffrey Ashe, Duncan Browne, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, G K Chesterton, Dante, W H Davies, P Kavanagh, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Marie Lloyd, Joni Mitchell, Richard O'Brien, Mike Oldfield, Christina Rossetti, Charles Schultz, William Shakespeare, Richard Thompson, William Whiting, Oscar Wilde and W B Yeats.

My information on the Glastonbury Giants was taken from a pamphlet by Mary Caine, printed by Grael Communications, Torquay.

With special thanks to Dubricus, for her help with locations in the San Francisco area and for agreeing to make a guest appearance in the story.

Warning
This story contains strong language, sex, violence and death. No animals were harmed during its creation, but a small tabby cat was spoken to severely for dangling his tail across the text on the screen while the work was in progress.

The Harrowing of Hell

by Jilly P

The paper was full of yesterday’s news. There were skirmishes in the Balkans and rumours of war; another political scandal had been uncovered and a senator’s career was on the line; a new study had proved the latest wonder drug against obesity to be unsafe; something nasty on the Net had caused a panic, with all the usual clamour to ban this and outlaw that; police still had no clue as to the identity of the man attacked and left for dead at Corona Heights, striped of his clothes and his memory; and three people had died on the highway in another cruel, senseless crash. Derek Rayne scanned the pages with his customary frown - two thousand years of western civilisation and nothing had changed for the better.
“Don’t squint,” Rachel said, through a mouthful of toast. “You probably need reading glasses if you have to peer at small print like that. When was your last eye test?”
“Gee, Derek, you’d look great in specs!” Alex giggled. “So very intellectual and distinguished! Quite the professor - you ought to go for it.”
He discarded the newspaper with an irritable rustle. “In high spirits today, aren’t we, ladies? It wouldn’t have anything to do with your latest test subject in the PK trial, would it, that intense, dark-haired young man?”
“His name’s Jaimie,” Alex said. “And he is rather cute.”
“Wasting your time, girl,” Rachel reached for her coffee. “He only has eyes for our Kristen.”
“What? Are you joking?”
“You mean to tell me that you haven’t noticed his eager puppy-dog look whenever she’s in the room and the way his face falls every time she leaves it?” the doctor shook her head. “Alex, which planet are you on? I guess it’s a blonde thing - if you stuck a straw-yellow wig on a mop and paraded it past the window, thirty percent of the men in the room would stare and ten percent would wolf-whistle. It’s in their genes, poor things. They can’t help it.”
“Men aren’t so easily swayed by such shallow things as hair colour,” Alex protested. “Derek?”
He shook his head. “This is one argument you can leave me out of.”
“But you’re our token man,” Rachel said, grinning. “Which do you prefer?”
Derek glanced from her sleek blonde tresses to Alex’s ebony ringlets and chose the diplomatic answer. “Redheads.”
“Coward!” Alex accused. “Shame on you, and you too, Rachel, for trying to wind me up! How could Jaimie prefer Kristen to me? I mean... there’s no comparison!”
Rachel grinned. “Tell us, Derek - who would you choose?”
“As I recall, the last time a man was put on the spot like this there were three goddesses and a golden apple involved - and it all ended in tears!” he picked up the paper and his coffee and retreated towards the door. “Having learnt from history, I shall withdraw before any lasting damage is done.”
Their laughter and good-natured jeers followed him out of the room.

“Jaimie’s late today,” Alex remarked, as he passed her later in the hall. “By a good half-hour at least.”
“I told you he was too flighty to complete the program,” Derek teased. “You must have worked him too hard on Friday and scared him off... “
“Me?” she rewarded him with a brilliant grin. “It’s Rachel’s fault, she and all her diabolical psychological tests!”
“Don’t blame me!” Rachel said, appearing from the drawing room. “You agreed the protocol and helped select the personality tests. Anyhow, the gate have just called to say that our young victim is on his way up to the house now.”
“About time too!” Alex frowned. “I wonder if he has a good excuse?”
When Jaimie arrived, he nodded a subdued greeting to Rachel as he limped past her. He had a black eye, bruising along one side of his jaw and a deep cut over his cheekbone, held together by three neat sutures.
“What happened to you?” Derek demanded.
The young man wouldn’t meet his gaze, suddenly evasive and wary. “I had a... um... little accident.”
“Here, come and sit down,” Alex ushered him up to the library.
Jaimie moved awkwardly, as if he was in considerable pain. Rachel wondered if he’d taken a beating, but he hadn’t seemed the sort to get into a fight. They sat around one end of the table, Derek claiming his customary seat at its head. “Tell us about it.”
“Things got a little hairy at Circle on Saturday night... “
Derek frowned. “You didn’t mention that you were involved in witchcraft.”
“I didn’t think it was important,” Jaimie said, defensively. “There was nothing about religious inclination in your questionnaire.“
“Tell us what happened,” Alex pressed. “Please.”
“It was just an ordinary meeting,” he shrugged. “Think of it as a supper party with a touch of ritual magic thrown in. Do you people believe in magic?”
“Sorry, no,” Rachel admitted.
“I do,” Alex confessed. “Derek, however, is waiting for the FDA ruling on the subject.”
Jaimie smiled, then winced as the movement jarred his ripped cheek. “If you’d seen what I have, you’d believe... You’ll have to forgive me - I’m not comfortable talking about the Craft to those who don’t practice it. There was a full moon on Saturday and our priestess summoned us to an esbat. We met, ate, drank and went about our magical workings - all very routine. The only thing out of the ordinary was that there was an outsider present, by invitation, of course. I’d heard of the woman - she isn’t a witch herself and yet most of the local covens welcome her along to their meetings. She seemed pleasant enough.”
“Who is she?” Derek asked, prompted by the feather-kiss of a shiver that slid down his spine.
“I don’t know her real name - our priestess called her Galadriel. She’s tall, strawberry-blonde and green-eyed, and she speaks with a slight accent, something European, I think.”
Alex glanced across the table, catching the sudden hardness in Derek’s eyes. He knows who she is, she realised. How can he be so certain, from a sketch made out of a scant handful of words?
The precept cut to the heart of the matter. “How did you come to be injured?”
“We worked an unfamiliar ritual,” Jaimie confessed. “I’m not absolutely sure of its purpose - I think it was some sort of portal between the mundane and the spirit-world - but evidently it went wrong and we gated something in from the other side, an elemental force, malicious and violent. I remember being hit in the face by something that felt like an invisible sledgehammer and after that, everything went a little hazy. People were screaming in panic and pain, the ground was shaking and I swear I saw lightning strike - I think I passed out then. I came round just after our visitor had stitched up my face. Whatever we’d summoned had gone and no-one was badly hurt - I suppose we were lucky.”
“And you have no idea what this entity was?” Derek was frowning again.
“I didn’t really see it. It moved so fast - it was flying, I think. A blast of hot air blew all of our candles out, then something came at me out of the darkness,” he swallowed hard, the memory too fresh and painful. “I’ve always felt safe within our Circle, but when that ugly thing hit me I was convinced I was going to die... I thought all of us were... “
“Did you get yourself checked out by your own doctor?” Rachel asked.
“I’m okay, just a mess of bruises and jangled nerves,” he shrugged. “No harm done. Shall we get on with my ESP tests now?”
“You’re in no state to jump through our hoops today,” Alex said, smiling in sympathy.
“Yes, you need to take a few days to get over the shock of this,” Rachel echoed. “I’ve some work to do at my office - I could take you back to the mainland.”
“I’m fine, really,” Jaimie protested. “It’s no big deal... “
“You can’t concentrate and you’ve lost your focus,” Derek said. “In that state you won’t produce any useful results. Forget the study for a week or so - it’ll wait.”
Alex caught Rachel’s eye as they escorted the young man out; Derek was seldom so reasonable. He waited until Jaimie was gone, then moved towards the stairs. “I need you to run a quick search on the database. It should only take a few minutes.”
“Okay,” she followed him upstairs and through the hologram, flexing her fingers as she sat down at the terminal. “Give me a subject.”
“Elise DuBois.”
“Ah, your pet thief,” Alex called up the file. “Our friend the silversmith, with sidelines into psychic healing and demon-hunting. Do you think that she could be this Galadriel, Jaimie’s mystery woman?”
Derek’s frown deepened. “What do we have on her?”
“Not much. Since that incident with the Green Man, Mam’selle DuBois has been laying low and keeping her nose clean,” Alex scrolled down the screen. “She’s been out of the country twice - a trip to Paris a couple of months ago and another to London, last week. Some of her jewellery was shown in an exhibition there and she sold a few pieces to some minor celebrities of the fashion world. Hey, look at this - she was even mentioned in Vogue!”
“Has she been linked to any further miraculous cures?”
“Rachel keeps us up to date with rumours from the hospital. Elise still visits people and most of them get better, but there’s no evidence, no real proof,” Alex pulled up the only picture they had of Elise DuBois, the one on her driver’s licence, and sent it to the large screen. “She’s been careful not to attract too much attention... “
Kristen wandered into the room, catching the tail-end of the conversation. She glanced at the blurry image on the wall and froze. “Dear God! Her! Wait a minute - that’s a Californian licence! Please tell me that she hasn’t moved out here...?”
“How do you know Elise DuBois?” Derek demanded.
“A local radio station ran some dumb news item about her curing a child with cancer. Honest reporting it wasn’t - according to them, she practically raised the kid from the dead! Our precept had us follow her around for a week or so, just trying to work out what her angle was,” Kristen scowled at the memory. “That was a miserable week - it rained every single day and I swear that bloody woman trailed us all around Boston just for the hell of it!”
“Why didn’t Jane just talk to her?”
“In the end, that’s what she decided to do, but somehow she must have got wind of it. She grew even more elusive - whenever we got close to her, she’d do a neat vanishing act. Finally, we set up a trap for her. It took most of the House, but we cornered her outside her apartment block. I was across the street with a girl called Valerie, our newest recruit, when two of the guys caught up with DuBois,” Kristen paused, reliving the scene. “They had her - one even had a grip on her wrist - and, boy, did she look furious! Then everything fell to pieces - Val cried out and collapsed, thrashing about in some kind of seizure. I yelled for help, the rest of the team were distracted and in the confusion, DuBois made her escape. We went back, of course, about three hours later, but the woman had gone - packed everything up and fled the city.”
“Was your colleague all right?” Alex asked.
“It was two days before she was even coherent. When she able to talk about what had happened, she said that when we’d captured DuBois, when we’d triggered her anger, the woman’s control had slipped, just for a moment. Val’s psychic in some way, a sensitive, and she caught a glimpse of what the woman keeps hidden beneath her mask of normality,” Kristen said. “She’s still having nightmares over what she saw.”
“And what was that?”
“She wouldn’t tell us all of it, just fragments,” the blonde girl shuddered. “This woman is dangerous, Derek. Val would only say three things about her - powerful, ancient and not exactly human.”
“We’ve had dealings with Mam’selle DuBois too,” Alex said. “She’s one of the good guys - she saved us from a devil-dog.”
Kristen seemed unimpressed. “Well, I wouldn’t trust her in a hurry!”
Recalling his last encounter with the enigmatic woman, Derek could sympathise with that viewpoint. “I suppose I’d better go and talk to her, to find out if she was involved in Jaimie’s ill-fated summoning.”
“How many of us will you need as back-up?” Kristen demanded. “Shall I get Nick?”
Derek frowned, perplexed. “I’ll go alone.”
“But you can’t! She’s too dangerous!” the blonde girl went five shades paler, appalled by the notion. “There’s no telling what she’ll do to you!”
“Elise won’t do anything to me - she’s a very reasonable person.”
“No, she isn’t,” Kristen said, shaking her head. “She isn’t a person at all!”

The converted warehouse on the edge of Chinatown hadn’t changed much. The alterations on its facade had mellowed with the effects of weather and the trees in its central courtyard had grown taller. No rainbow moons and stars to walk through today; the cosmic dome was being cleaned, swathed under polythene sheeting, and the cafe tables stood deserted in twilight. He went to the back of the building and up to the second floor, then jangled the antique bell five times before the door was answered.
Elise DuBois stood there, hastily wrapped in a patchwork quilt. It left her shoulders and far too much of her long legs bare. He’d roused her from sleep - her pale auburn hair was a tangle of snake-locks and she looked groggy and confused.
“You!” Real surprise registered in her voice, in her peridot eyes. “What brings you here, Dr Rayne?”
“That flashy magic trick you worked on Saturday night.”
She didn’t reply, turning away from him and leaving the door standing open. Derek closed it behind him. The apartment was in semi-darkness, its blinds drawn against the daylight.
“Give me a moment,” Elise went into the kitchen-area, stumbling about like an automaton as she set water to boil on the stove. The quilt hampered her movements, dragging behind her like a train and slipping down, so she was constantly clutching it about herself to cover her nakedness. Derek tried not to stare. He’d forgotten just how lovely she was in the flesh. His mind strayed for a moment, wondering how it would feel to run his fingers through that glorious hair, how it would feel to lie close to her, skin against skin, how her lips would taste...
“Dr Rayne?” her voice summoned him back from his reverie with a jump. He tried to keep the guilt out of his face. “Would you be kind enough to wait while I... “
“Make yourself decent?”
“That might take a century or two, I fear,” she said, without smiling. “The best we can hope for at the moment is ‘presentable’. Will that do?”
“I’ll take that.”
She rolled up the blinds, wincing at the sunlight that poured into the room, then grabbed the two loose pillows from the sofa on her way through to the bedroom. He heard water running and vague movements for a few minutes, then she was back, composed again, wearing a brown silk robe and with her hair combed and fluffed out. Without asking, she made coffee for both of them and sat down on the sofa. He took the armchair, reluctant to sit too close to her.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” All the evidence suggested that she’d slept on her own couch, which seemed odd, since there was obviously no-one else here. “Isn’t it a little late in the day to still be asleep?”
“I came home in the early hours of Sunday morning and crashed here,” she took a hit of the coffee. “Must have slept straight through.”
“For around thirty hours?”
“I lead a chaotic life, Dr Rayne. Sometimes I don’t sleep for two or three days, so, when I do, eight hours just isn’t enough.”
“You look pale,” he said. That was true - her complexion was a stranger to the sun, as white and translucent as bone china. She looked vulnerable, fragile, but that was an illusion. He’d glimpsed her hidden strength. “I imagine that the rest of the coven look worse.”
“I work through bruises quickly,” Elise shrugged.
Derek almost smiled - he’d missed that signature gesture. “Just what exactly were you trying to do?”
She leaned forwards, resting her head on her hands and massaging her temples as if to dislodge an ache. The firestorm of her hair hid her face. “I can’t tell you.”
“You mean, you won’t,” he scowled. “I’ve no time for your games, Elise, your mystical, mystery act. Last time I played along, but this time you’re going to tell me the truth from the outset!”
She lifted her head, mischief sparking in her eyes. “You missed out the ‘or else’, didn’t you? I tell everything or else... what? Will you beat it out of me, Dr Rayne, or isn’t that your style?”
“Mam’selle DuBois, don’t tempt me!” that came out laced with more anger than he’d intended.
“Ah, but I might!” her smile took his breath away, so warm, so intense. “Would you hit me, I wonder, if I provoked you enough?”
“Of course not!” he said, in exasperation. “I’d never hurt you... I couldn’t... “
Her eyes went suddenly wide and vacant, and her face went slack as the inner vision engulfed her. Precognition - Derek knew well enough how it felt. Black lightning. Silent thunder. An abyss yawning at your feet waiting to swallow you up.
“Elise?” Unthinking, he reached out to take her hand. “What do you see?”
His touch roused her and she snatched her arm away, but not before he’d sensed a fragment of her vision. Darkness, sorrow and blood.
She shook herself, her face still a mask of horror. Her eyes focused again and she stared at him, trying to judge how much of her private insight he’d stolen. “Rien, c’est rien... Nothing, I saw nothing.”
From the pieces he’d seen and from her reaction to the precog, Derek took a wild guess at its content. “You saw a death, didn’t you? Whose was it?”
“No-one,” A little crooked smile twitched at her mouth. “No-one important.”
“Elise..?”
“You have the Sight yourself, Dr Rayne. You know how fickle it is, how imprecise, and anyhow, the future is plastic, changed and shaped by our actions in the present.. “ she sighed. “D’accord... okay. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but..?” All of the light drained from her face. “When you strip it bare, the truth is pretty meaningless really. I’m free-lancing for your people. I’m a... what’s the exact term they used? Ah, yes... a consultant.”
“You’re working for the Legacy?” That wasn’t the answer he’d expected.
“Not willingly, I assure you!” she shook her head. “One of your colleagues in London called in an old debt and, when I reluctantly answered his invitation, I got hauled in front of the whole damn Council. They had the gall to threaten me...”
“The Ruling House used coercion to make you work for them?” The very idea gelled like ice in the pit of his stomach. “What on earth did they want you to do?”
“Free a soul from Hell.”
How soon he’d forgotten what a conversation with this woman was like! At first cordial and civil, then the gathering unease, then that little casual phrase that almost stopped his heart. Derek shivered. “Sloan?”
“Mais oui, poor William. I had a plan to get him out, with the witches’ help, without using those bloody sepulchres - I really thought it would work!” she growled, deep in her throat, like a tigress. “But I was wrong - sweet fire, I’m not used to being wrong! We botched it and gated in a minor demon, a nasty dog-faced winged thing, one of Belial’s crew. I managed to send it back and we escaped with our skins relatively intact, but we came within a whisker of disaster.”
“And Sloan’s still in Hell?”
“Not exactly,” she frowned. “We pulled his body through, back to earth, but they kept his mind.”
“His body? Is he dead then?”
“No. He’s alive, just not himself.”
“Where is he?”
“Je ne sais pas,” she said, vaguely. “I’m not sure. I imagine that the police still have him in custody. They described their latest John Doe, the man found naked on the Heights, as being in his late forties to early fifties, with greying hair and blue eyes. Does that sound like Sloan to you?”
“Yes,” he saw the flaw in her story. “How do you know about that? You’ve been asleep for thirty hours.”
“Perhaps I woke in the early hours of this morning and caught a news bulletin? Or did I scry it in smoke or see it in my crystal ball? What does it matter?”
“You promised me the truth.”
“So I did,” she smiled an apology. “It was on the news - it’s the kind of kooky story that they like to run with. Perhaps you ought to go to the police and give them a name for their mysterious stranger?”
“And what will you do?”
“What, do you require a copy of my itinerary?” she stretched languidly, wriggling her toes. “Well, right at the top of today’s list of to-dos are another cup of coffee, some breakfast and a long, hot bath. Would you care to join me in any of those?”
“Non, merci!” he stood up, hurriedly. “I meant, what are you going to do about Sloan?”
Elise drew her legs up in front of her, resting her chin on her knees. “I don’t know. I don’t suppose you have a spare ‘Get out of Hell Free’ card floating around anywhere, do you?”
“Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars,” Derek grinned. “Nice idea, but, no, I’m afraid not.”
“Thought so,” she sighed. “Leave the problem with me, Dr Rayne. I’ll work on it.”

The police were unhelpful when he contacted them, almost up to the point of being rude. No, they wouldn’t let him see their anonymous attack victim. No, it wouldn’t help them if he could identify the man at this point in their investigation - in fact, it might even be harmful to their victim. And no, they didn’t care who he was or who he knew. As far as they were concerned, the Luna Foundation could just keep their noses out of the whole affair.
Derek put the phone down in frustration. Things had been so much easier when Frank was still alive. Now the back door was locked and bolted, while the front office seemed to have instructions to keep him safely at bay.
He put in a call to the London House to check on Elise’s story - not that he didn’t trust the woman, but she had lied to him before. London were a little cagey when questioned about Mam’selle DuBois. Yes, she was in the Legacy’s employ as a consultant, and that was all the information they were prepared to disclose about the entire affair. He insisted on talking to Wallace, the locum Precept, was kept waiting for ten minutes and then fobbed off with some dumb excuse that the man was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. Derek broke the contact, swearing aloud in the silence of his office. Damn London! Damn the Ruling Council! And these people were meant to be on his side?

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