Below her she could hear the grunts of effort of the five thousand Angels who followed, and squabbles from those in the back. She grinned to herself. As they’d flown up, she’d told them that the last Angel through would get to spend a hundred years in the Lake of Fire. It had done wonders for keeping them moving. Ishtar had picked the place for them to come out onto the earth. It was a teeming city in the mountains of Afghanistan. It had Christians, Muslims and Jews—all the people who claimed to follow God—living together in one place. Outside of Jerusalem, before the Christians arrived, it was one of the best places to test whether God was listening to the prayers of his people. Tribunal said God wasn’t. But Tribunal isn’t the one who is going to risk his ass, Ishtar thought. The thin light from the crack in the world above was growing steadily brighter. Now, when she looked up, Ishtar could see clouds, and the occasional bird that veered momentarily above the hole, only to pull away again as soon as it sensed what was below it.
