I get a good chuckle at the sight. And she’s fine too, so I send her after all the militaries on the planet. That’s her little treat. Not that you can blame the guard dogs for biting who their masters tell them to, but everyone is everyone, so—she’s always kinda been on the fence about war, anyway.
I guess she’s funny that way, because the rest of us… Well, not anymore, but back in the dream called life, and judging by how many different conflicts we created so Protection defense contractors could stuff their jowls with more… War, we love that shit!
I guess normally I would’ve done it differently—gobble up the peas and piss before we got to dessert—do the hard stuff first. But sooner or later this job is gonna start to suck ass, so I figure it is better if I work them up to it.
I would like to say that I paused and wondered if we were doing the right thing—carrying out the will of the Word for the creators of humanity—the two top assfuckers themselves. I would like to say that I had a lot of guilt, while I was tearing limbs and ripping guts and cutting out the lying tongues of the filth of the earth. And I would like to say that we all had a change of heart and just couldn’t go through with it. And I would love to say that we stopped at the teenagers, or the women, or the girls … or the babies…
Oh … I bet you didn’t know that archangels had to kill babies, did you? Neither did I, but like I said, everyone is everyone, so the little squealing, future assfuckers of the earth go, too. Not like we weren’t setting up assembly lines to abort them, anyway. I know that sounds a little hypocritical, given, but despite the understanding that we should feel some kind of mercy or remorse, none of the three of us can manage one ounce of pity. We’re avenging archangels, for God’s sake—by the time we show up, it’s too late for all that redemption shit. Not my department.
And I have to cluck out a chuckle when I say it to one of the begging little bitch “Prime Officer of the Board of Directors” I stomp. I always wanted to say that to one of them.
The trouble is, you can only ever complain to the credits-checker about the long line at the mart, and he has as much control over fixing it as fleas have on where a dog shits. And bitching to him is just about as effective as…
And I just have to shake all the shitty thoughts, because though mangling metaphors to amuse myself is fun, it’s not getting me any closer to getting this job done.
Back to business.
After a couple thousand, ten thousand at the most, I get numb to it. And then it gets tedious, and then it gets common—no different from a couple old guys on a park bench, reading the front page of the Protection daily while they feed the pigeons. “Another rich asshole got his heart ripped out by an angel last night, Phillip. Oh heavens, what’s the world coming to, Edward?”
So I settle into a little groove of gutting and it’s talons-tits-testicles, talons-tits-testicles—the whole process gets downright average. And if there’s anything I hate more than gun-grabbing, revenue-ripping politicians, it’s the assholes of the average. So I invent ways to kill in order to entertain myself—keep myself awake.
I come up with funny names too—amusing to me, anyway—just to keep it interesting. There’s “Politician Pie,” for those annoying little citizen council meetings where assfuck wannabes go to boot camp to learn how to pretend that you have a say in how things are run; there’s the “Weathergirl Wail,” but that one goes a different way than I expect, because when they finally realize they don’t have to suck any more cock, trying to get themselves to the “Mornings with Morons” show on the PIN, they get a peaceful, accepting look on their faces and just bleed out in silence; and my personal, all-time favorite “The Gun-grabber Gut-pile,” reserved for ignorant and uneducated people who truly believe that once the governments of the world have all the guns, it will be all cupcakes and cream cheese anytime they have a disagreement with their citizens.
And I fire up the worst and the longest and the most ludicrous conspiracy rants in my head that I can in order to keep my rage up and my adrenaline pumping for the task at hand.
Ever try to wipe out a planet? There’s a few points where I could use an energy drink. Maybe Fury has some extra coke? I smile at the thought.
And I could pretend that I cried over the loss of the shopping sprees, and the reality reruns on the PIN, and the trillion meaningless holidays Protection invented to keep poor people poorer as they crack credits they don’t have on more plastic shit they don’t need… I could pretend that I understand how a multimillionaire cinewave actor could get on the PIN and guilt a bunch of citizens, scraping by a week at a time, to donate credits to save the starving African babies or some other futile crap. Especially when the motherfucker could just whip out his hex-card and come up with the whole amount out of his therapy money. But that’s never the point, is it? Not with arrogant, rich and powerful fucks. They feed off your guilt and your money, not their own.
And I could delude myself into believing that if people would just stop listening to the same lies over and over and over again, because they were so drunk on faith in their leaders that they couldn’t see the wrathful truth if it was an archangel ripping off their nuts. But, pushing stupid prick and pussy to Purgatory isn’t about pretending.
And I know in your head you want to ask the question, so yeah … sure—some of them are good people and some of the bad ones do try and repent—tell me all the good they’ve done, and that they don’t deserve it, and how cruel I am, and how unfair. But I just laugh right in their faces. They just don’t get it. This whole thing—life, death, reincarnation, eternity—the Protection motto actually got it right, go figure. They fucked up the true meaning, though. Go figure that, too. “Ensuring peace and prosperity … for all.”
I think everyone realizes it, but no one slows down enough to do anything about it. Hard to slow down when you’re clawing the aisles for more cheap crap from Chinasia. But make no mistake, humanity is a team sport, and on this round … we lost like a motherfucker.
And son of a bitch, I have to stop in mid-gut on some poor repentant fuck and check myself, because I’m monologuing in my mind. Jesus Christ, I hate that shit!
— L —
FURY, SALVATION AND I planned to regroup at around three billion, because, figuring out the time-zone thing when we are racing all over the globe, lopping off heads… Synchronize watches, while the relativity of time decided how fast it was going to play out…? I don’t think so. Any Vegas blackjack dealer will tell you—it’s easier to keep track of the count.
So we meet on the top of Mount Everest—my idea. Closest place to Heaven on Earth, I figured. Trouble is, it’s so cold, we last about ten seconds before Fury is bitching to go to Mexico.
When we get there… I don’t know what Mexico she’s been tripping to, snorting coke, getting high on her own judgment, tanning on the beach with her daddy’s hex-card, but the real Mexico—the one the Mexicans live in—is a sludge-filled, shitpile of slime.
Trick question—how hard is it to just round up all the drug lords, murderers, and teen-tit traffickers in Mexico and slice out their souls over breakfast? The answer is, it’s not. The trick … start with the Protection agents.
— LI —
ALL OF THE angels perched in the Hallowed Hall atop the great mountain, watching the cleansing of the garden. They knew they had seen it before—over and over for all time. But something was different.
It was a treacherous game to play—each of them planning for the other’s demise. But the lust for power tugged at them both, so Dal and Life each plotted and calculated their next move while the other did the same.
Dal stood in the center of the arena. He said to Life, “Look at him, he is making great pace. I told you he would—”
“It is far from complete,” said Life. “He still has time to figure it out. We must—”
“Why do you worry so?” asked Dal. “It has been this way forever. My reign shall be no different, I am afraid.”
“I shudder to imagine it.�
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And shudder you will, Dal thought. “These are your rules, not mine. Try to follow them this time.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Whatever you are thinking,” Dal said, “it will not work. I will rule, you will serve. It is written.”
“I realize this,” she said. “I helped write it.”
“Shall we send the gatherers?”
“Not just yet,” said Life. “I want to see some more.”
Dal knew she would get drunk on the misery during a Judgment Day. She did every time. It would give him just enough of an edge. “Ah, there you are, my lady,” he said. “A few more then? Enjoy. I’ll go prepare the first flight.”
— LII —
I HOPE THEY are watching up in Heaven … or Hell or wherever, because I don’t know how many angels “The Queen” and her “Dark Asshole” have at their disposal. There were a million at least, flocking out the arena up there. But down here, the world is turning into a moaning, wriggling, writhing toilet full of floating souls, wailing and waiting to be flushed down the drain. It’s starting to get messy. I hope they send the soul patrol down here pretty quick, because the noise is grinding on me.
But as it turns out, they are watching and soon enough I hear the distant cooing and cawing, and the wind rushing under what sounds like millions… When I spot them, it looks like billions, as the winged warriors of the Word show up. And they twist and turn, and spin and dive, swooping down onto souls like eagles fishing for trout.
If you’ve ever seen a tornado of ducks and geese twist down and descend upon a freshly cut cornfield, and then strip it clean of every last spilled kernel, that’s what it reminds me of. And I know I have a job to do and I know that time itself is running down, but I just have to pause the pain for a while and watch. And I remember hunting ducks with my dad and I smile. I remind myself to savor the spectacular, as well.
My dad… Is that a memory or was that real life? The difference is foggy in my mind. The father was certain he was right. “Fucked up Book of Blood,” I mutter.
I don’t have long to ponder the thought before this flight of faithful and fallen ascend back to the heavens with the whole point of this exercise tucked tightly in their talons. And then it’s back to the brimstone, because three billion isn’t even halftime.
By five billion, Fury is just warming up. There’s a lot of pent-up rage in there, and she doesn’t look to be running out of fire to fry people any time soon. So I send her on her way to clean up Europe. She’s a spoiled, international jet-set brat—I figure she’s the best one to send to police the pompous. Besides, I sure as hell don’t want to have to deal with France.
Regardless, my little Salvation and I have some … unfinished business to attend to.
Uh-huh…
Huh? … What? I don’t know if it’s my inner voice, or the assfuckers talking to me? “Oh,” I mutter, “that’s just wrong.”
Because this is The End. The time for fornicating is over. I mean, look where it all led. Anyway, I don’t even know how it would work on an angel. I guess I could figure it out, and once I did … well, then yeah, sure … of course.
— LIII —
I FORGET ABOUT the … distractions, and Salvation and I have a little chat instead. At first, she doesn’t really want to talk about it, but when I tell her that I had to watch, helpless during the whole thing, she’s madder than if I had never even known. Can’t blame her, really. But it seems a long time in the past for some reason.
Doesn’t really matter, because the both of us remember it the same way. And if there is ever going to be something good that comes out of this whole fucked-up and better off long-forgotten day, it’s going to be this next part. Because love and lust and the ludicrousness of this life might be a long-lost memory in the next one, but this … this next part is about hate … and hate never forgets.
I bet you thought I forgot, didn’t you. Not likely, but the hardest part about being responsible for The End is that you still have to tie up all of the loose ends you left back at the beginning of your own life. Create too many of them, and it can be a mess. Being an angel doesn’t exempt me from that.
When Salvation and I catch up to them, they are busy doing what rats do, looking for a way off the sinking ship.
Because a hundred and twenty meters under a sandstone mountain, behind six-foot concrete walls and huge concrete and steel doors, just outside the village of Svalbard on Spitsbergen… Hell, I can’t pronounce the shit either, but I know what’s really under the mountain on this island in Norway, and it’s not what the Protection says it is.
The permafrost and low earthquake likelihood are nice, and the whole thing is far enough above sea level that even if the polar icecaps melted, everything would stay dry. And all of that makes it a great place to house the world’s global seed supply should the earth, say … be burned to a cinder of ash and need to be replanted, or some other angel-fairytale shit like that, for instance.
But the hardest part about storing seeds isn’t protecting them from the heat and the moisture, or any other environmental hazard from above. Because if you kick over the global food supply, what you are gonna find underneath it … is rats.
— LIV —
IT’S FREEZING IN Norway—I feel damned near as cold as Mount Everest. It could be colder. And the whole landscape is covered in snow. Reminds me of the Great Mountain of the Eternities. But there are no angels inside this sandstone, snow-covered lair of liars. By the smell of the fear and panic, the inside of this molehill is filthy with rats.
Most of them only have one job—protect their powerful leaders from The End, even if they have to cough up their own souls to do it.
And I think to myself that it’s ironic—all the resources that are put into saving the very assholes that ruined the whole planet in the first place. They build elaborate, highly secure, underground cities for themselves, because they know that after the shit cools down—after whoever is left swims to the surface through the sea of shit they got thrown overboard into—the people they drowned are coming to drown them. And it won’t be any nice slow lube session either.
No, those people know that their only hope… Their only salvation will be to hide until it’s all over, and then come out at the end of it, pretending that someone else made the mess and they are humanity’s last hope of cleaning up that “other” guy’s mistakes.
Today, my sweet Salvation and I are here for two little raping and murdering souls, in particular. It’ll be a bonus if they’re holed up with their PAIC boss—the bastard from the roof where I jumpstarted this whole messed-up journey.
It’s a little-known fact—at least outside Norway—that in Norway, expensive State-funded construction projects have to include some kind of work of art… . I shit you not. “State” funded… They say it like it’s some kinda separate entity that allows the rest of the population to enjoy the fruits of its labor and generosity. The reality—God or government—you work for it, they take it, tell you to be grateful when they give it to someone else.
And as we stand outside the door, marveling at the roof and vault entrance—the hole down to this rat trap is filled with highly reflective stainless steel, mirrors and prisms. They all act as a beacon, reflecting polar light and shining a network of two hundred fiber-optic cables that gives the place an eerie blue and green glow. And I shake my head at the whole gaudy waste of citizen-slave blood, sweat and tears.
Salvation can tell I’m grinding up a rant in my head. You don’t live with someone that long without being able to read their fucked-up, revenge-filled queues.
“Jacob…” Shit, that’s her reprimand voice. “You need to stay under control. Amy is still up there with them.”
And she’s right. Brightest angel or not, we both know who Rain’s dealing with.
“What?” I say, “I’m just gonna let ’em know we’re here. And it’s Jump.”
She knows that’s bullshit and she plugs her ears and pushes out all of her
armored feathers. And I spread my wings as wide as they’ll go—right in front of the security feed by the entrance—and I screech a scream out that is louder than anything I’ve yelled since this day of judgment started.
And Salvation is blown backward, and all the mirrors and all the prisms explode into a fine glass mist, completely obliterating the beautiful benevolence of the State government of Norway.
When the first six scurry out, I let Salvation cut them to pieces with her pinfeathers and quills. They barely get off any shots, before they are bloodstains and brains. Then we step over the steaming puddles of rat bile and the severed limbs and heads, and walk to the big concrete door.
And Salvation knows they’re inside—she says she can smell them. I wonder how, but I’m not asking the question, because all I can smell is my own vengeance, bubbling like acid from my stomach and burning the back of my parched thirst for payback.
If the big door did make them feel safer before, it doesn’t after Salvation rips it open like a tiny sardine can. And then there’s running, and gunfire and smoke, and yelling and shouting and screaming. And when we both spin and send hundreds of ballistic fire-feathers into the fray, limbs and blood and guts and brains splatter the inside of the big vault. It’s like shoving rats in a blender, and I can only hope that the ones we’re after are still living, because this fate is just too good for them.
But when we slice and cut our talons through the ones left alive, Salvation stops over two of the chopped-apart bodies and stares. And then she starts to cry.
By the time I calm her down, I’m more pissed than when we poked our way into this nest. Women and crying just makes me want to kill whoever caused it.
“That’s them,” she says.
It’s all she has to say. Five billion souls in, we both know that revenge is bittersweet at best. It leaves an ice cold, empty pit in the middle of our stomachs that begs us to keep trying to fill it with boiling hot blood. The only problem, every time we do … it just gets colder.
Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 Page 22
