Angels & Patriots_Book One

by Salina B Baker

  He snatched the horse’s reins out of William’s hand, and urged the horse to walk in slow wide circles. This made them a moving target while soothing the horse.

  As they rode in a circle, Colm’s resplendent silver wings silently unfurled. Silver crystals showered upon the horse, the road, and the regulars of the rear guard. The crystals drifted into the edges of the woods and against the earthen wall below the ledge.

  A few stupefied regulars fired accidental shots. Half of the men bolted into the woods on the other side of the road; propelled by a ravishment that erased their fear of rebels lurking there. The remaining men fell to their knees and thanked God for delivering an angel unto them.

  Henry watched with smug satisfaction. He was far from tired of this game of cat and mouse with the colonists and the British. Besides, the game became more interesting with the arrival of the angels, so there was no need to rush the outcome. What was another few years compared to a few millenniums?

  “Preceptor, there you are!” Henry said, as if Colm had been out of his sight for two hours instead of two centuries. “I must say, I have forgotten the spectacle you are capable of producing!”

  Colm reined the horse to a stop and tightened his grip around William’s waist.

  Henry grinned. “Have you left Joseph Warren without the benefit of your protection just to steal a horse?”

  Colm struggled to restrain the urge to use his gold radiance to kill Robert Percy in response to Henry’s sarcasm. That struggle intensified the pressure Colm’s spirit was inflicting on the demon possessing William.

  William exhaled a cry of pain. “Henry, the archangel is killing me! Make him release me!”

  Henry did not acknowledge William.

  Colm furled his wings. They had served their purpose by defusing the threat from the men of the rear guard. “Where’s Ian?”

  “Oh!” Henry exclaimed. “Joseph Warren is not the only one deprived of your holy protection. You have lost an angel. What a pity.”

  Colm sliced off William’s ponytail with one smooth motion of his butcher knife.

  William screamed, “Henry! He—”

  Colm sliced the back of William’s sweat slicked neck from hair line to shoulders.

  “Henry, he is cutting me with a knife! Tell him where the angel is! Make him release me!” William tried to throw his body forward and away from the archangel’s blade, but Colm’s grip was an iron manacle around his waist.

  “Are you murdering humans now?” Robert sneered.

  “That is a good question, Robert!” Henry chortled. He narrowed his yellow-green eyes in a gesture of false suspicion for he could have cared less about the answer. “Are you and your angels losing control—again? The angel you call, Ian, killed a possessed living woman outside of Lexington. She seemed to have gotten the better of him before she died. Robert discovered the angel unconscious and bleeding.”

  Colm’s voice thundered. “WHERE’S IAN?”

  The nervous horse brayed like a frightened donkey.

  Robert smirked. “We took your angel to Concord. He died on the way.”

  He’s baiting me, Colm thought. But Ian is in Concord. Robert didn’t see Brandon or he didn’t recognize that Brandon is an angel. They’re safe for now.

  The demon that possessed William felt the pressure on his spirit increase. “HENRY! GET THE ARCHANGEL AWAY FROM ME! HE’S KILLING ME!”

  Henry remained unfazed by William’s plight.

  Robert’s eyes remained on Colm when he spoke to Henry. “The preceptor killed three demons that possessed living vessels in defense of the angel they call Liam. I was under the impression he had forsaken Liam.”

  “I believe Robert has provided a perfect example of your loss of control, archangel. To forsake or not to forsake….” He pointed his index finger at Colm, “…that is the question.”

  Colm’s rage erupted. He removed his arm from William’s waist, whipped his butcher knife outward, and stabbed William in the right eye and then in the left. William’s scream was bloodcurdling. His hands flew to his eyes and face. The horse reared. Its front hooves came down and hit the road with a hard jolt. William tumbled head first over the saddle horn. His forehead struck the ground, and his neck snapped. The demon’s compressed spirit shot from William’s dead eyes in two tight shafts of orange light and then disintegrated in mid-air.

  Henry’s horse spooked and bolted a hundred rods to the west.

  Colm threw his butcher knife at Robert, but Robert caught the knife by its hilt before it could do damage to his eyes.

  “Ya are next,” Colm promised Robert.

  Colm stroked his horse’s neck. Then, he flashed his green aura to comfort the frightened regulars who remained on their knees.

  He shook the reins and the horse trotted to the earthen wall that rose from the road to the ledge. The silver crystals from his wings still glittered in drifts against the wall. Dirt and rocks drizzled on the road. Jeremiah rappelled the wall and landed on his feet near Colm. Colm offered a hand to heave Jeremiah into the saddle behind him.

  Well, well, look who we have here; the man who stabbed me in the back at the meetinghouse. Robert thought. He reached for the flintlock pistol hidden in the breast of his coat.

  Colm spurred the horse. It galloped past the dead Lieutenant William Sutherland and eastward toward Menotomy before Robert could aim and squeeze the trigger.

  Robert watched the horse gallop past the last two companies in the rear of Colonel Smith’s column, and then bound into the woods to the south.

  Twenty-four

  Ian dreamed that he saw Sidonie’s ghost floating above him as he lay on his back upon the leaf-strewn grave. He thought at one time he had given her a human body where her soul could dwell, but that must have been a dream.

  No, it had not been a dream. It had been another life.

  His wife and children were dead in the life he had now. The emptiness and the wretchedness of losing them was more than he had been able to bear.

  Are they buried in this churchyard? Or am I lying in my own grave, dead of a broken heart and spirit?

  “Ailbe, where are you?” Ian called out to his wife. Dirt filled his mouth. He spit it out, but the gritty grains remained.

  Where are my children? He tried in vain to remember their names.

  “Diareann, Fianna, and Quinn,” Ailbe whispered. “They are here.”

  Ian’s eyes stung with the dirt from their graves, and the saltwater in which he drowned in Wexford, Ireland.

  When did I go off to war to fight with Colm Bohannon and his men? Ian thought. Or was that a dream I never lived?

  Then, there was darkness.

  The rebels had reorganized and leapfrogged to the head of the British column. The militia units took up positions along Fiske Hill. Michael and Patrick were among the group of rebels in the woods to the north of the road. Seamus had taken Liam deeper into the woods away from the gunfire.

  Liam was awake, but not lucid. Seamus had a difficult time getting him to walk let alone maneuver the rough terrain. By the time the boys caught up with them, the militiamen where again swarming the woods around them.

  Colm and Jeremiah were in the woods to the south of the road. Colm carefully guided the horse around boulders and underbrush. They encountered militiamen prepared to assault the British column’s advance on Fiske Hill and joined them.

  Major John Pitcairn was riding madly about, re-forming the head of the British column, when rebel volley fire raked them. Pitcairn’s horse was hit and the major was thrown into the rocky dirt road, irate but unhurt.

  The road over Fiske Hill was steep and heavily wooded—another box of rebel crossfire. For many of the regulars it was the end of any self-respect and discipline. The advance companies of the column stalled, causing following companies to collide into them.

  Open anarchy swept through the British troops, and as they pushed past Fiske Hill, they were met with another obstacle on the outskirts of Lexington proper—Concord Hill.<
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  Ensign Henry de Berniere saw that the light companies were so fatigued with flanking that they were scarcely able to act, and their great number of wounded were falling behind. The column’s ammunition was nearly depleted.

  The regulars began to run. The officers presented their bayonets to stop the uproar, but the panicked troops couldn’t differentiate between death by rebel musket ball or bayonet.

  As minutemen and militiamen closed in for the kill on Colonel Smith’s column, just west of Lexington, there on the rise beyond Lexington Green, where all this had started ten hours before, stood a thick line of red uniforms. It was Lord Hugh Percy and his 1,500 British reinforcements.

  The constant sound of gunfire led Lord Percy to draw a battalion up on a height overlooking Lexington Green. The sight of Colonel Smith’s dirty, frightened, and worn-out troops, fleeing the rebels’ volley, was evidence of their impending destruction. He was ready to avenge them.

  “Captain Campbell, provide the field pieces for immediate firing upon the rebel forces! Target the woods to the north of the road and the other to the south,” he ordered.

  In the woods to the north, Michael and Patrick crouched behind a low stone wall that marked the boundary of a farmer’s land. Patrick sat down to reload his musket. He reached into his cartridge box, pulled out a cartridge, and then bit the paper end off before he dropped it into the muzzle.

  Michael aimed at the simmering eyes of a demon-possessed British infantryman running along the edge of the road. Michael’s musket misfired when he pulled the trigger. He was resetting the flint when he heard cannon fire.

  A black cloud of smoke swelled in the gunpowder choked air. The woods behind the boys were lambasted by cannonballs.

  Panicked, Patrick and Michael abandoned their position behind the stone wall and stumbled through the hazy woods to ensure that Seamus and Liam were safe.

  “SEAMUS!” Patrick shouted. “WHERE ARE YOU?” His distress caused his palimpsest to surface for the first time. The fleeting dream of Seamus shouting in an unknown language and grabbing him around the neck was little match for what Patrick’s spirit experienced.

  He was in a forest with Michael and Brandon. They were eleven-year-old kids. Acrid smoke irritated their nostrils and burned their throats. Suddenly, they were running. Patrick’s consciousness shifted. They were standing in a clearing, which served as the commons, in the village where they lived. Everything was on fire. The tall canopy of trees roared in an inferno overhead. People were shouting and running in all directions. Some screamed in agony as their arms flailed in an insane attempt to rid their bodies of the flames engulfing them. Dogs, pigs, goats, and chickens scurried into the surrounding forest only to be incinerated in the furnace of burning underbrush. Embers and sparks snapped and popped within the thick roiling smoke.

  Michael ran across the commons toward a cluster of burning huts screaming, “ATHAIR! MATHAIR!”

  Brandon remained rooted to the place where he stood, and repeatedly cried out, “BRANNA!”

  The smells and sights were inconceivable to Patrick. He didn’t know whom among his loved ones were caught in this horrible calamity. Had Seamus already left the village with Ian to fight with Colm? Hot smoke choked Patrick and closed his throat. Embers and sparks burned his cheeks and hands. Then, the vision slid away, and he was falling into darkness.

  Michael saw Patrick fall, but he no idea what had felled him. “No!” Michael shouted. He caught Patrick before he fell onto the forest floor. Patrick’s body was unwieldy and limp. Michael stumbled.

  Seamus ran to help Michael. He wrapped his arms around Patrick as Michael’s knees buckled. With Patrick in their arms, the three angels fell to the ground.

  The rebels on the south side of the road heard the heavy sound of cannon fire from Lexington and knew that meant British reinforcements had arrived. They continued to volley at the British regulars.

  Colm’s spirit suffered from the agony of wounded and dying British and rebel soldiers. The children of man, no matter who they fought for, deserved comfort. Their duty to see to it that reapers ferried the souls of the dead to God’s commanded final destination, was a millstone all the angels had to bear each time the brotherhood went into battle. Their fear for one another and the overwhelming number of dead kept them from performing their duty as they should.

  Further, the spiritual noise of the battle deterred Colm from sensing the stress his men were enduring in the woods north of the road.

  The British fired their cannons again—this time aimed at the woods to the south. A cannonball whooshed through the trees. The underbrush to Colm’s right caught fire. There was momentary confusion among the militiamen. Someone yelled, “Hot fire from Lexington!”

  Another cannonball trundled through the woods directly behind Colm and Jeremiah. The militiamen in the southern woods ceased fire and dispersed.

  Colm, overcome with fear for his men, bolted toward the road.

  Jeremiah went after him, jumped on Colm, and knocked him down before he got to the edge of the woods.

  Colm tried to push Jeremiah off.

  Jeremiah tried to keep him pinned to the ground.

  Colm punched Jeremiah in the jaw.

  Jeremiah returned the blow. He pinned Colm’s wrists to the ground and said, “Listen ta me! The road’s crawlin’ with demons possessin’ the dead! If they see you tryin’ ta get ta your men, they’re gonna follow you!”

  “Ya got one second to let me go!” Colm hissed.

  Jeremiah ignored the threat. “The Brits column has fallen apart. The militia has scattered, for now. You killed that livin’ man—that lieutenant. This is exactly what Henry wants—bedlam among you and your brotherhood; bedlam among the humans. He wants you ta lose control. Ain’t that the very thing that drove you ta hide in Burkes Garden? Loss of control?”

  Colm’s jaw tightened. Why is he always right? He’s just like Joseph.

  Jeremiah released him. They stood up. The woods were eerily quiet on both sides of the road.

  “The rear guard’s comin’,” Jeremiah whispered.

  “Get away from the road.”

  “I ain’t one of your—”

  “—GET AWAY FROM THE ROAD!”

  Colm’s shaking body scared Jeremiah more than anything he’d seen since they arrived in Lexington under Seamus’ command. He wasn’t sure who he was afraid for, but he knew if he didn’t do as Colm ordered, Colm would have trouble controlling his angelic powers.

  “I’ll go fetch the horse,” Jeremiah said, reluctantly.

  Colm tried in vain to catch a glimpse of his men in the woods on the other side of the road. Within the momentary silence, he attempted and failed to reach out to Ian and Brandon.

  The rear guard passed by. William Sutherland’s body was draped over the horse that Robert had been riding and was now leading. Henry’s attention briefly shifted to the southern woods.

  Ya know I’m here, Colm thought. Good.

  Thirteen demons, possessing dead British regulars and a few countrymen, trailed behind the rear guard.

  The sight of the ghoulish procession of the walking dead, whose bodies were ruined in one fashion or another, induced yelling and sporadic gunfire from both sides of the road. The rebel forces ran east through the woods to stay on the flanks or get ahead of the British column.

  When the rear guard disappeared from sight, Jeremiah led the horse out of the woods, and across the road to enter the northern woods.

  Colm followed. With the immediate danger out of the way, he was able to concentrate on sensing his angels.

  “They’re deeper in the woods,” Colm said. He ran until he saw Seamus’ purple aura flashing in distress.

  Patrick sat with his head lowered. Seamus sat beside him with one arm wrapped around his shoulder. Liam sat with his back against a boulder. His head had fallen to one side, and it nearly touched his shoulder. Michael stood on the boulder behind Liam’s head and watched the rebels move out. He saw Colm’s approach, jumped
down, and went to meet his brother.

  “What’s happened?” Colm asked Michael.

  “Patrick collapsed. Liam won’t wake up.” Michael’s wings rustled loudly.

  Colm kneeled in front of Patrick.

  Seamus breathed a sigh of relief.

  Colm slid a finger under Patrick’s chin and raised his head. “What happened?”

  At Colm’s touch, Patrick’s blue aura shimmered brightly. He looked into the familiar eyes of his archangel. “It’s what Michael was goin’ on about. It was him. I saw a vision of somethin’ horrible that happened to the human, Patrick Cullen, and his village, when he was a boy.”

  For the first time since he occupied his human vessel, Patrick felt the strange sensation of tears drip from the corners of his eyes. The tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “What did ya see?”

  “I saw a horrible fire destroying a village. People was screaming and burning and the smell…” Patrick shivered. “Michael and Brandon was with me.”

  Colm cupped Patrick’s cheeks. “Joseph called it a palimpsest. Traces of what used to be, showing through what exists now. Some of us are beginning to consciously experience it, and we can’t control it. I know it’s frightening. Close ya eyes, and let it slip away.”

  Patrick closed his eyes. He unfurled his wings to comfort himself. Silver crystals and blue light shimmered in the woods. The remnants of his frightening vision were washed away on the current of his archangel’s benevolence.

  A few straggling militiamen stopped to behold Patrick’s wide-spread wings.

  Jeremiah’s arrival was announced by the noise of the horse stomping through the underbrush. Two or three startled men rounded on him with aimed muskets. They relaxed when Michael greeted Jeremiah.

  “Liam’s in a bad way,” Seamus said to Colm. “His aura’s gone out. He ain’t gonna make it.”

  Colm moved to sit on the ground in front of Liam. He grasped Liam’s cheeks with one hand, and turned Liam’s head so that he could see his face. He brushed the fingertips on his other hand across Liam’s wounded forehead.