by Stuart Slade
“District Attorney, do the People have adequate evidence to continue this case without the inadmissible statement?”
“We believe we do Your Honor. We have the original honey trap information that specifically links the defendant with the leaks of data from the DIMO(N) field facility. Obviously, our interrogation of the defendant will continue.”
“Without the presence of Miss Sharmanaska of course. Miss Sharmanaska, it is the opinion of this court that you acted in good faith, cooperating with the law enforcement authorities at their request as is the duty of a law-abiding citizen. No blame can be attached to you although I will rule that any interrogation in the presence of a succubus will be presumed to have infringed the suspect’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. As for you gentlemen from the FBI.” The judge wagged his finger in the time-honored gesture. “Shame on you sirs. You conceived this attempted end-run around the Constitution and deceived this poor innocent succubus into becoming part of your schemes. The one redeeming feature is your forthrightness with this court, your clear explanation of what was done and the refusal of yourselves and Miss Sharmanaska to conceal your actions. This matter will be referred to your superiors and they can decide on whether further disciplinary action is required. This evidentiary hearing is adjourned.”
Eight hours later, Judge Candlass woke up in the middle of the night and mentally reviewed his statement. It occurred to him that one thing he has said was indisputably right. Succubae were dangerous, especially in a poorly-ventilated courtroom.
Montmartre Club, Eternal City, Heaven
“Mama’s dancin’ with baby on her shoulder
The sun is settin’ like molasses in the sky.”
The chorus echoed around the club. The bandleaders had orchestrated the music to take advantage of the unprecedented assembly while the singers had harmonized perfectly. Michael absent-mindedly tapped his foot in time with the music. The song was about Elvis Presley, a subject that was one of some regret to Michael-Lan. He’d really wanted to rescue Elvis and bring him to the club here, but he’d failed. He couldn’t quite understand it, he’d never had any trouble before in intercepting a dead human and whisking them away before they turned up on the Plateau of Minos.
Around the club room, Michael’s most trusted followers were also listening to the bands, the music surrounding them and concentrating their minds. Yah-yah might be “The All-Knowing”, thought Michael but he didn’t know squat about how the Chorus actually worked. He still held to the old belief that the constant chanting was necessary to generate energy and stopping the chorus for any reason would have disastrous results. Michael knew differently, there was nothing magical about the chanting, it just acted as a framework that would allow the Angels to get their minds into perfect harmony. And that magnified their powers greatly. Any music would do, any music at all.
Michael-Lan closed his eyes, and let his mind wander, seeking the signal that would mark the exact spot where Uriel was dying in the hills of eastern California. Briefly, he measured the possibility of leaving him there unrescued and taking a quick holiday in his beloved Las Vegas instead. The idea seemed so attractive, yet it was quite impossible. He’d had a direct order to rescue Uriel and simply ignoring it was premature. One day, the time would be right to tell Yah-yah what to do with his orders, just the way the humans had, but that time wasn’t now. Anyway, staying on Earth was hazardous these days, especially anywhere in North America.
There it was, weak and flickering, but it was there. Uriel’s mind. Michael-Lan seized on it, amplifying the contact and refining it to give an exact position. This had to be a quick, in-and-out job. If he stayed on Earth for more than a few minutes, the aircraft and missiles would be on to him. They had come so very close to killing Uriel, they could do the same for him. He and Uriel were the same, the first rank of the Chayot Ha Kodesh, the Archangels that represented the peak of the Angelic Host. In fact, Michael was more than half-convinced that Uriel possessed powers that exceeded his own and that was another reason why Uriel would have to go. The same conviction was why Michael wanted the humans to kill Uriel for him; he was by no means certain that he would win a direct confrontation with Uriel.
“We have him, Noble One.” Another group of Angels, Erelim and Hashmallim, triumphantly shouted out the news. There glee was two-fold, partly at being of service to their hero Michael-Lan who had brought life and pleasure back to Heaven. The other was relief that once the location process was over, the session could be brought to a close and the club get back to its normal life.
“We too!” Another group claimed their location.
“And us!”
Michael-Lan concentrated harder, drawing on the power of the Angels unified by the music. The spot of light that located Uriel contracted, shrinking until it became a single, almost dimensionless spot. For a brief moment, Michael hoped that it would continue shrinking until it vanished altogether for that would show that Uriel was dead, beyond saving. But no such luck, the spot remained, weak and indistinct but still there. “Wish me luck, this is going to be interesting.”
Hills South of San Felipe, Southern California, USA
It was over, Uriel knew now it was just a matter of time, the humans had trapped him and they intended to kill him. A dozen or so yards away, a rock exploded as another human shell plowed into it. The humans who had been chasing him were close enough for him to see their vehicles, to see the cloud of smoke from them as they fired at him. Already, they had come close, adding to his injuries. Uriel could feel his body beginning to give up. Angels, like their fallen siblings in Hell, had an uncanny ability to regenerate and recover from their wounds but damage could mount up faster than they could repair it. When that happened, the system would collapse and the Angel would die. Just as hundreds of thousands of the fallen ones had died under human artillery fire.
Overhead, the small, brightly colored aircraft were circling his position. They’d seen him, they’d called for the humans to close in on him. At first, he’d tried to bring his peace to them but he was too injured, to weakened to summon the necessary power. A few birds had dropped dead, especially the ones circling over him with hungry looks on their faces, but the humans hadn’t been affected. That left only his power to trumpet. It had been so long since he had done that he wasn’t quite sure whether he remembered how but his options had shrunk to almost nothing. In fact, they were less than that for Uriel knew that even if his trumpeting was effective, there were too many humans. All he could do was die bravely. That was the only real option left and Uriel wasn’t even sure he could do that.
Another shell exploded near to him, this one sending up a cloud of dense white smoke. Overhead, one of the small aircraft had peeled away from the rest and was diving on him. White streaks shot out from under its wings and slammed into the ground all around him, sending more of the dense white smoke clouds upwards into the clear blue sky. Rockets, Uriel guessed what the humans were doing. They would see no point in closing in on him and risking their lives in a close-range fight. They would call in their aircraft to drop bombs and fire missiles instead. His fear had been right, he wouldn’t get a chance to die bravely.
To the southeast, Uriel saw four streams of black smoke. Adjusting his vision to long range, they became four aircraft, strangely shaped ones whose wings went up, their tails went down and they seemed bent in the middle. And they were trailing the black smoke as they closed fast on him. Uriel summoned his strength and tried to trumpet. He managed a weak blast of sound but that was all and the oncoming aircraft hardly seemed to notice the trumpet call. He could see them change course slightly, refining the direction that would take them straight to him.
Then, everything seemed to go dark around him and strong arms were wrapped around his waist. “Come on, old friend, let’s get you out of this mess.” Michael-Lan braced himself and tried to take in the situation, carefully holding Uriel so that the critically-wounded archangel would screen him from any bullets. He didn’t need much to tell h
im that the four approaching aircraft were the most serious threat he faced. Michael-Lan stared at them, concentrated all the power he could into his lungs and emitted the most powerful trumpet blast he could manage.
1,500 meters west of Uriel, Southern California, USA
“Look at the Rhino’s go, Pop… … Err, Sir.” Bobby-Lynne Gordon kicked herself again and then pointed at the four Phantoms as they swept down into the attack. They could actually see Uriel now, surrounded by the white smoke of the white phosphorus shells and rockets. As her father had put it, the zoomies would almost certainly kill Uriel but the 443rd could make his eyes water with willie-pete first.
Off to their right, Sergeant Vincent Mitrakis had the best view of the end-game. He was using a high-powered optical scope attached to his Barrett Model 99 rifle to try and get a killing shot in before the fighter pilots claimed all the glory. Even with the Raufoss multi-purpose incendiaries the army had issued, he doubted that he could get a clean one-shot kill in but, it was worth trying and the great figure sprawled on the ground was already sorely injured. If he fired enough shots, he might just make it. Then he cursed, the white smoke from the marker rounds was fouling his line of sight. Something was roiling the smoke, spreading it. He swept his rifle across the target area and saw a black ellipse forming. Then, a huge figure, easily as large as Uriel but glowing so purely white as to make the clouds of white phosphorus smoke seem gray and dirty in comparison, stepped out and reached down to pull Uriel to his feet. Mitrakis moved the aim of his scope up to the new arrival’s head and, as he did so, he gasped. The face on the angel was incredibly, stunningly beautiful. As handsome as the familiar Baldricks were ugly. Before he could recover from the shock, the new arrival looked at the four approaching Phantoms and opened his mouth.
Bobby-Lynne Gordon heard the note, unearthly pure in its beauty, echoing across the ravines. Even here, far away from its main focus, it had a power and impact that briefly stilled the 443rd’s efforts to finish of Uriel. She could see that its effects on the chosen target were much more dramatic. One of the four Phantoms fell apart in mid-air, its wings torn from its body, its tail crumpled with the impact. A second, the one beside it was thrown out of control and it dived into the ground before its pilot could react. The two outer aircraft were also thrown out of control but to a lesser extent and their pilots managed to save their aircraft. That didn’t change the fact that the attack had been broken up and the great white angel had bought a few seconds of time.
Mitrakis took advantage of the opportunity and squeezed off his first round. He’d aimed for the head but the trumpet blast and the swirling air around the site foxed him and he saw the bullet slam into the great white angel’s shoulder. Through his scope, he saw the silver blood scattering in the air and a trace of smoke rise from the wound. Then, he was frantically working the bolt, trying to get another shot in. A round from a 106mm crashed into the ground a little short of his target just as he fired and that left his second shot going wild. Another frantic working of the bolt and a third shot slammed into the white angel, this time dead center on his chest. By this time, his target had shifted Uriel to provide cover from this new direction. Then, with a cheerful wave to the humans, Michael-Lan stepped through the portal and it slammed shut behind him.
“I don’t believe it, he got away!” Artemis Gordon stared at the blank area of scrub in frustration. “We had him cornered and he got away.”
His daughter looked over the hills to where the funeral pyres of the two F-4s stained the sky black. “He’ll be back. We’ll get another chance at him. Boy, he was hot though.”
HQ, Third Corps, Third Army, Fourth Army Group, Human Expeditionary Army
“General? General Petraeus is on line twelve for you.” General Asanee took her eyes off the map and picked up the videophone receiver. “Sir, Asanee-actual here.”
“How are you doing down there General?”
“We’re ready to go Sir. Fuelled up, bombed up, everything in place. We can head north as soon as we get the order.”
“That won’t be necessary. Than Shwe has surrendered, he’s been spilling his guts to us for the last six hours. What we’ve got is interesting to put it mildly. The Myanmar regime had been supplying large quantities of heroin, methamphetamines, marihuana and ecstasy to a representative of Heaven. And when I say large quantities, I mean tons of the stuff. So much so, the recipient uses an electrically-powered trolly to take it all back.”
“Very interesting. I see no reason why we can’t continue supplying that filth to them can you. Opium wars and all that. Who was the representative, anybody we know?”
“Very much so. Michael-Lan-Yahweh. Just about the top angel in Heaven.”
“Michael-Lan is running drugs into Heaven?” General Asanee’s voice was incredulous and to her embarrassment it went up into a squeak. She breathed for a second and carefully remembered her elocution lessons. When she resumed, it was back to her usual contralto. “Is he shipping them to customers here?”
“Not as far as we can make out. As far as some initial inquiries have determined, the stuff is going into Heaven and staying there.”
“So Michael-Lan is running dope. Well, now that is interesting. You do realize we execute people for that.”
Petraeus laughed. “He won’t fit in front of a firing squad.”
“He doesn’t have to, we’ve changed to lethal injection.” The General sounded sad for a second. “I spoke against that, there’s no dignity in laying on a table being poisoned.”
“General, you’re missing the point. Michael-Lan picks the stuff up from the Myanmar Junta and takes it back through a portal to Heaven. We’ve been unable to crack Heaven open for over a year no. This offers us another possible way to get one. If he can be persuaded to pick up another consignment, we can monitor the portal and try to find out how to drive one of our own through.”
“Another Sir?”
“Yes, bad news is Uriel got away from us. Michael-Lan-Yahweh again, he did a combat pick-up and got Uriel out. But, we have some recordings of that portal as well. If we can get a second batch of readings, we might be able to move.”
“Another pick-up.” General Asanee broke into a smile. “We could always send him something he didn’t expect with his cargo. Like a tracer or … …”
“Something that makes a very big bang? Ahead of you General. We’re getting one sent over.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Temple of Ceaseless Compliance, Eternal City, Heaven
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come. You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. Oh nameless one, Lord and God of all, we prostrate ourselves in your presence service. Please accent these trivial offerings of our strength and support that they may lessen the great burdens of your everlasting care for us.”
Lemuel-Lan-Michael was sprawled on his face in front of the altar. This was a small temple, one that he had never heard of before and it seemed new somehow. He could smell the raw stone, the freshly-sawn wood of the altar table. It also seemed to be a poor temple, the semi-precious stones that layered the walls were of inferior quality and the workmanship seemed hurried somehow. That was all the information he could gain with the quick glances he had been able to make between choruses. Them the chant would start again and he would go along with it. Being a part of this congregation was vital if he was to maintain his cover and infiltrate the Second Conspiracy.
It didn’t help matters that the case was hitting his home life. He was having to be away more and more often, for longer and longer periods. It wasn’t that his mate was complaining, the duties of a female mate in Heaven were clearly defined. Serving her mate was one of them, nagging him was not. But there were ways a female could convey her displeasure and recently Lemuel-Lan had been on the receiving end of them all. The message had been quite clear, his absences from his home were not
appreciated and she was even implying that there might be more behind them than his work. There were those masters of a household who might have chastised their mates for such insinuations but Lemuel-Lan was not one of them. Instead he just resented the implications and let them seethe in the back of his mind.
The latest repetition of the chorus finished, Perpetiel-Lan-Paschar rose to his feet and extinguished the bowls of burning incense that had filled the room with their odor. When he had arrived, Lemuel-Lan had found the scent of the incense pleasant but now, after six hours immersed in the aroma, the thick, clinging clouds were sickening. They hung around him, irritating his throat and stinging his eyes. His throat felt sore from the constant chanting, his stomach was turned by the smell and his head ached. In short, in a phrase that he would never dare admit in public, he felt like hell. It was almost enough to make him feel that his mate was right and that added to his distress greatly.
“Perpetiel-Lan-Paschar, we have done well tonight. Six hours of adoration will surely aid The One Above All in his care for us.”
“We can but hope so, Most Lordly Ophanim, but we must beware falling victim to the sin of pride. Even our most valiant efforts are as nothing compared with those of The Nameless One. Please, Most Noble One, I crave your indulgence and beg you to excuse my impertinence but do you feel unwell?” And if you don’t, we’ll have to double up the dosage next time.
