Joan turned away from her thoughts and stood. She made eye contact with everyone at the table and up at the packed theater. “If anyone here did not receive the information, Denver is the back gate into Hell.”
The room bustled, murmurs rose. God’s name whispered in a wave throughout the audience to declare their disparity and fear. “General Temeculus arrived to open this door, and jump-start the Apocalypse. We need to secure the door and destroy the army he’s trying to create.”
“Why can’t God come down and end this war if He’s so powerful?” This question came from a voice in the audience and drew several nods and mumbled agreements.
Joan gave a closed mouth smile. Her face grew hot from the man’s question. “Peter Hinze, if God decided to stop Temeculus, the Apocalypse would begin and this would not give you the chance to change your evil ways. God is all powerful.”
She read his mind. Images flashed by: a child’s huge eyes filled with tears, tiny hands forced to touch him where they should not. Peter Hinze’s face paled and twitched. He rose from his seat and left the room in a hurry. She cared less if he hung himself or not.
“Anymore questions?”
Senator Fred Temper from Ohio stood. “How large is his army, Joan?”
“He arrived with one hundred thousand soldiers soldiers trained for one purpose, to conquer this planet and open the back door to Hell. He also needs human souls to fill his Black Army on earth, and Satan’s army in Hell. These numbers are necessary to conquer the world.”
“Did other countries comply with his requests?” A Marine general asked at the table.
President Wallace spoke. “At this time no. China stood down three hours ago after confirming our situation. Britain is on our side. France is trying to figure out a way to negotiate. They realize this is more than an American problem.”
Joan followed up behind Wallace. “Tomorrow morning we will start training Task Force Gold Shield, which I renamed the Guardians. Remember people, we must make sacrifices.”
Joan excused herself from the table. God made the choice to take a big gamble with the human army, a choice she began to question.
28
Joan stepped out into the empty hall painted an industrial white. Relief filled her as she escaped the stuffy room. She read their minds, and what she gathered unnerved her. Several generals thought someone from another country attacked California. In their private thoughts, a few challenged the president’s sanity after he conceded to the Biblical threat.
Still she managed to get the training started. She did not give them a choice, not with California aflame and General Temeculus successful human conscription. Combined with his troops from Hell, they would become a strategic challenge for the Guardians.
The door to the theater swung open, people crowded out into the hall. Some paused to shake her hand. Others gave her sideway glances and continued in silence or conversed amongst themselves in low voices. Her angels exited from the room and surrounded her.
Daisy Lane gave Joan a smile. “What now, boss?”
“Preparation for training,” she said. Joan met Daisy’s steady green eyes. She sensed Daisy wanted to ask about the gaps between those long years, and what led them to this unexpected war. “I’ll talk with you all when I get the chance. Rest well, Maria.” Joan patted the angel on the shoulder as the group walked up the hall.
Joan followed them with her eyes. A familiar voice whispered in her head as a few people approached the angels to talk. At least some decide to warm up to her team. The mortals did not have to like the angels, but circumstances forced them to work together until Temeculus’s army lay broken on the battlefield.
Joan turned in the opposite direction and entered a side office furnished with a plain wooden desk and a metal file cabinet. She closed the door behind her and waited.
“Our situation is volcanic, Joan,” Michael said from the shadows behind her.
Joan turned to face Michael who leaned against the far wall. He wore a straw cowboy hat, crisp white shirt, faded blue jeans, and worn down cowboy boots. “I understand,” she said.
“Do you? We didn’t expect what happened last night with Maria. Take my hand and let me show you what is happening.”
Joan reached out and touched the archangel’s strong calloused hand. Within moments they vanished. She inhaled a deep breath. The world at her feet dropped away, an airy lightness swept through her body. Her legs jellied as the archangel whisked her up towards the skies.
The White House fell away. The land beneath her became a brown mass. Clouds entered her vision and the earth turned into a beautiful blue-green marble swirled in white.
The two eternal beings went beyond the earth and stars and the universe itself. Joan eyes widened as the journey took them past constellations, mysterious black holes, and bright purple-orange dwarf stars. They swept by planets swollen with alien life. The blackness faded off like night and pure daylight graced her eyes.
Clear skies appeared above them as they came upon a fifty-foot high wall with a magnificent solid gate. The gate glowed with gold, diamonds, and rare jewels not found on earth. Beyond the walls lay green hills, an emerald green so smooth, clean and vibrant, she wanted to cry in joy. A huge city sat upon a mountaintop and shined with a vivid light, yet did not blind or hurt the eyes. To the east sat Heaven’s opulent palace, made from gold and other precious metals.
“Seventh Gate,” Michael said.
Joan wondered why Michael entered Heaven through the back door. She remained silent and enjoyed the beauty.
Two powerful angels opened the jewel-encrusted gates to Heaven. Joan and Michael floated into the kingdom. They traveled over lush green hills and tundra dotted with various animals from deer to lions. Crystal blue streams and lakes stretched beneath them. Joan wanted to pause long enough to sip the sweet waters and touch the roaming beasts.
Joan’s eyes swept over the Eternal Kingdom. The enchanted place glowed a miraculous pearlescent. Tiny forms moved within the massive city. Huge mansions dotted the hills on its outskirts, and its perfection made her smile. She wondered why the archangel brought her to Heaven now and not when they met in Atlanta.
For sure Charles and William strolled about the streets paved with gold. She closed her eyes and focused her mind to reach out to William.
A hand touched her shoulder and broke her concentration with such abruptness her heart ached. For a millisecond, William reached out to her in response. She stared at Michael’s passive face and followed to where his finger pointed. The two settled upon a high green bluff. Below them sat Heaven’s training grounds.
Angels in the millions spread out for miles and beyond the horizon. Senior angels adorned in black and gold armor conducted the training.
The angels below, sectioned off in ranks, practiced sword strokes. Another immense group practiced blocks with their shields. Others sparred with weapons and bare hands. Thousands raced across the skies on horseback and in chariots. Thousands more engaged in faux battles. Some wore battle armor polished bright by the golden sun.
Others wore plain white tunics as they trained in every field related to ancient warfare imaginable.
Michael stretched out a steady hand towards the field covered in angels. “After last night, God ordered us to start training harder.”
Joan’s stomach tightened, a lump clogged her throat. “You are expecting me to fail, Michael?” She surveyed his patient face. A tremble ran through her body. She did not want to fail. With effort she forced the anger away as her body began to tense.
“No. Yet, we need to be ready, Joan. Everyone needs to be ready.” He shifted an open hand towards her. “Change into your armor and take my hand.”
Joan did what he asked. Their sudden travel made her dizzy as if an elevator dropped from a thousand feet down into a hot basement. The scene around her went from bright to black in seconds. Her knees buckled, and they found themselves in a dismal place drenched in hellfire.
The two angels sto
od on a rock. The blunted lip jutted over a valley packed with jagged black ground and fire. They faced a nightmare. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled sulfur powerful enough to kill any mortal. Screams rose from the blackness and echoed off dark cavern walls.
Lakes burned with fire and dotted the landscape. Unfortunate souls suffered their torment within the bright liquid fire. Demons dove into these lakes, misshapen, with tight grins, and pulled forms from the liquid fires and violated them. Souls ran across Hell with arms raised. The souls shrieked their displeasure and pain at such torment.
Whips cracked, inhuman howls rose as the damned raced across Hell like distorted shadows. Her thighs trembled and Michael steadied her.
Joan coughed and covered her mouth with her left hand. Bitter bile caught her throat, her eyes burned. She never wanted to come back to Hell. She turned and found Michael adorned in his beautiful golden armor. At his side and in his powerful hand he held his blade. She drew her sword and readied herself to fight against the unseen minions who lurked in the smoke and fire below.
The archangel deployed his white wings. He leaped from the high rock and floated to the ground followed by Joan. They landed on enemy terrain covered in tiny spiked rocks. Hell’s archangels dressed in black Roman armor marched forward. A demon army trailed behind the archangels.
“The Hell Force,” Michael said and named off the black archangels who once roamed Heaven. He pointed at each one, and she remembered their names. They marched ahead and stopped within fifty-feet from the two.
Michael frowned. “Where is Lucifer? That most foul being. That retched of retches. Call him to stand before me.” He sheathed his sword and ordered Joan to do the same.
An explosion ripped through Hell. Fire rolled across the cavern roof, and every flame in the area turned a brighter red. Fat larva, pale and blind, scampered from holes within the rocks to approach the angels. A powerful fear fell upon all within the cavern except for Michael and Joan who stood their ground.
Lucifer emerged from the hellfire. His footfalls shook the cavern as he stepped from the lake to solid ground. Lucifer stood thirty-feet tall and wore black pants made from human skin. In one hand, he held a bright red sword as if pulled fresh from a blacksmith’s mold. His long black hair covered his powerful shoulders. He stood over the two, and shrunk until he reached six-feet tall.
“Michael, are you here to take my kingdom from me, or are you here to dwell among the most perfect of beings,” he said.
Lucifer’s voice rolled thick with hate. His red eyes flashed, no horns adorned his head or fiendish incisors graced his mouth. His teeth, white, straight and perfect, formed a contrast against his red skin and dark persona. A black cloak covered in live anguished faces draped his muscled shoulders.
Michael walked forward. “Be ready,” he whispered to Joan. “You brought your rabble with you, too afraid to meet me alone, Lucifer?”
The devil laughed. His eyes flashed a laser red. “Oh, the mighty Joan is at your side. I guess fear is equal between us, Michael.”
“Tell your army to leave Los Angeles, Lucifer. They will not win this battle.”
Lucifer clicked his black tongue. “But we procured the Key my dear, Michael. Hell is at hand my friend. I will lead my Hell Force from this door and your troops will be swept aside.”
“Keep Lucia well, we will rescue her soon.”
Satan threw back his head and howled a laugh. “Come and rescue the child my old friend.” He turned to Joan and winked. “I hope you will be leading the pack of mongrels when we attack, Joan. I saved a special place for you next to my throne.”
He slid a hand between his legs, a bulge swelled, tiny horns poked through the human leather at the crotch. Two black tongues slid from his mouth. “The offer is always open.”
Michael drew his sword in a silver blur. “Stay your tongue with her you, bastard.”
Satan opened his mouth. A witch’s cackle erupted from his throat. “A little sensitive aren’t you, Michael? Archangel. Your boss is a murderer and a liar. We will get our revenge. Jehovah will pay for his transgressions. Heaven is big enough for two rulers.”
Michael took two steps back until he stood next to Joan. He slid his sword into its scabbard, his anger dissolved. “I will meet you in battle soon, Lucifer.”
Lucifer smiled. His straight white teeth gleamed like fresh cut diamonds and changed into a mouth overcrowded with razor sharp fangs. “See you in Hell, Yank.”
Michael nodded towards Joan, both their wings spread out from their backs. They took flight into the air heavy with heat. Both angels lighted on the rock they alighted on earlier.
Lucifer’s dead eyes trailed the angels as they soared above Hell’s insanity. “See you in Heaven, Johnny Reb.”
Michael grasped Joan’s hand and took flight. They flashed upwards through rock and stone to arrive in a room located deep within the White House underground fortress. Their armor steamed from their journey to Hell, sulfur with its faded stench floated around their bodies.
Joan gazed into the archangel’s calm eyes. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Michael touched Joan’s tiny chin. “We all must make sacrifices, Joan.” He turned and this time walked through the wall.
Joan sat on a desk in the room. She changed from her armor and into brown leather pants and a matching top. Joan prepared her mind to get the Guardians and her angels trained. Time no longer remained her friend.
29
Lucia, the Key to the back gate of Hell sat prisoner in a tower above a broken Los Angeles where unhinged violence raged a thousand feet below. The cell remained dark, the door, closed and bolted. Two demons built like muscular men with bullheads and bovine hindquarters stood outside her door. Three horns sat upon their heads, joined by more than ten thousand black eyes. In their massive fists they held battleaxes, and over their hairy chests, they wore thick armor forged in Hell.
Lucia approached the lone window in the tower and leaned as forward as possible. She balanced herself as not to tumble out the window cut from rough stone and bones. Below the cathedral, the streets swarmed with activity. Trucks, soldiers, and tanks moved about as helicopters soared overhead.
General Temeculus created a mortal army. She witnessed those who refused to join the Black Army killed or pressed into slavery. Prisoners worked as armed men guarded them. The slaves cleared the debris from the streets so the troops and vehicles could travel unhindered.
Lucia eased away from the window and sat on a bed made from bone. In a few days, the army would be ready to march. Her time to open the gate ticked away. Her existence functioned as a balance, an agreement made between God and Lucifer until the Apocalypse. Lucifer broke the agreement. God’s trust in Lucifer to keep such a pact surprised her.
Lucia, fourteen years old in mortal years, forgot her actual age from the time God expelled Satan from Heaven. Satan’s move surprised everyone, the universe shifted from his brutal attack. She covered her wet eyes with her hands. Each century went by like this. Although her mind remained the same since the battle in Heaven, she realized how close time hung about her, dry and uneventful.
Every hundred years she died, returned as a new baby, grew old and died again. Until now. Now her destiny unfolded before her. She never dreamed Lucifer as the initiator to such an event as the Apocalypse. She often imagined the archangel Michael dressed in his golden armor, her hand in his, as they strode towards the massive ironwood gates with Heaven’s army close behind.
Lucia fell to her knees, folded her hands and focused her eyes on the dark skies. Dim light from outside the slender window fell across her body and cast her in a sparse glow. She took a breath to calm her nerves and prayed.
Heavy engines rumbled far below, joined by rowdy voices and screams. The cacophony faded until her voice filled her head. She prayed hard and long. After awhile her knees ached against the cold stone floor.
General Temeculus stood above his battle map drawn on General Wells’s stretched flesh. In his
large hand he held a tarnished cup filled with hot blood. He lifted the cup to his nose and inhaled the warm coppery scent. His captains surrounded the table. General Wells’s head did not move, yet a low animal groan escaped his mouth.
Temeculus studied his map. He paused and delivered Black Angel a satisfied smile. With a pinky extended, he sipped from his dented cup. His spies delivered him the information he wanted. The Marines at Camp Pendleton started to evacuate. The first convoys dispersed the camp a few hours after the initial invasion, leaving the general’s convoy for last.
Temeculus desired this general’s hide stretched across another table, the one he planned to use for his main attack into Denver and down into the Colorado Rockies to open Hell’s magnificent door.
The necessity of destroying Denver to secure a base for Satan dominated his thoughts. He fought hard to maintain a lightening pace, fast enough to keep Joan off balance. He spoke to Hitler before the invasion and the tortured soul told him how a blitzkrieg worked. After their chat, Temeculus tossed Hitler’s worthless soul back into the Lake of Fire.
Temeculus turned away from the map. He strode towards his balcony to gaze over the city. “Black Angel, Wrath.” He waited as his two heralds stepped to his side.
“Black Angel, you made me proud last night. We won a major advantage against our enemies, and we are closer to conquering Heaven.”
He grasped Black Angel’s cold hand and turned to the other herald. “Wrath, I need you to send a few mortal soldiers to attack the Camp Pendleton units headed to Denver. Bring the commanding general to me, alive. Do not, no matter what, engage in battle yourself.”
“Yes, my lord.”
General Temeculus laid a hand on Wrath’s shoulder. “Go now. Let’s put our new army to the test.”
Wrath leaped from the balcony. His horrid steed raced from midair. Wrath mounted the beast and rode to the ground with his sword in hand. He barked orders to the mortals below, engines started.
Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) Page 13
