General William Howe was hungover from another private party he had attended the night before with General Hereford, Captain Percy, and Captain Jameson. William’s cock was raw from the hours he managed to keep an erection and fuck more women than he thought possible in one night. He was slumped in his chair, drinking rum. He hoped that he would get drunk before one of the generals in the room demanded he have a coherent opinion.
Henry and Robert sat across the room from William. From over the rim of his glass, William eyed Henry. Not only did Henry look as if he had not had a drop of alcohol and a good night’s sleep, his impeccable dress was sweat and wrinkle-free. His unsettling yellow-green eyes were alert and smiling. Robert appeared to be in the same condition.
Henry Clinton made a point to look at Thomas Gage when he said, “I recommend we take immediate action to secure the surrounding environs.”
Thomas slipped a glance at Henry Hereford. Despite their somewhat uncomfortable relationship, they had shared a home for almost five months. That domestic familiarity was what Thomas held on to now.
Henry flashed Thomas a smile, but it was not born out of the familiarity Thomas clung to. Henry realized that the three major generals would not sit idly by and watch Boston implode. They were about to construct the opportunity Henry needed to force the archangel to choose between his little brother, Michael, and his pet, Joseph Warren. It was so close that Henry could feel it in his God-given wrath.
“On Sunday, June 18, when most of the provincial army in Roxbury is attending religious services, John will begin cannonading Roxbury from Boston Neck,” Henry Clinton explained. “In the meantime, William can lead a detachment to Dorchester Heights, build two redoubts, and attack General Driscoll’s army in Roxbury.”
William felt the urge to touch his raw cock in an effort to soothe it. Can Clinton be any more tiresome with his drivel about cannonading Roxbury and attacking from Dorchester?
To William’s surprise, Henry Clinton said something that made him forget his discomforts.
“We need to focus on the heights at Charlestown, to the north across the Charles River, as well,” Henry said. He sipped a cup of one of Boston’s precious commodities—tea. “These areas are essential to the safety of Boston, and an attack would shake those rebel wretches and possibly disperse them for a time.”
“I am in agreement,” General John Burgoyne replied. He sipped his own cup of precious tea.
Despite John’s acquiescence, it made no difference to him. He was more than content to take quill to paper and write any dramatization the five generals in the room cared to announce. Therefore, on June 12, he turned his quill to crafting a proclamation for Thomas, stating there would be no British compromise with the patriots. Any persons after the date of the proclamation, who took up arms or otherwise aided and abetted the rebel cause in any way, even if only by a single secret correspondence, were to be judged rebels and traitors and treated as such.
Then, Thomas decided to institute martial law in Massachusetts.
A few days later, he asked John to offer clemency to all patriot leaders who promptly surrendered, with the exception of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. John Burgoyne wrote with an overblown, pompous tone that did nothing more than drive a wedge deeper between the rebels and loyalists.
Thomas had finally sealed his fate. The man who was to replace Lord Dartmouth as Secretary of State to the Colonies, Lord George Germaine, lamented to his peers that General Gage was in a situation of too great importance for his talents.
Thirty-seven
As the leader of the Provincial Congress and the Committee of Safety, Joseph was the one to whom prospective officers appealed when they were angling for a commission in the provincial army. John Adams, still in attendance at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, read and reread the letter Joseph had written:
I had never, till now, any idea or suspicion of the selfishness of this people, or their impatient eagerness for commissions. In the British army, an officer comes from the English upper class and has to purchase his commission. In our new American army, no such social and financial qualifications exist. Instead of paying for a commission, an officer is expected to earn it by recruiting the sufficient number of men. The lowest can aspire as freely as the highest. There are no people on Earth so ambitious as the people of America.
Similarly, Samuel Adams received a letter from Joseph concerning his disappointment in discovering that a close colleague, Dr. John Jeffries, harbored English loyalist ambitions to elevate his social status, and like the former Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, Dr. Jeffries was willing to step on anyone who impeded his way. Joseph wrote:
The English ambition to rise to a higher social station requires the need to sacrifice people. What is needed in America is a government in which the only road to promotion may be through the affection of the people instead of attaining membership in a group that exists above the people. This being the case, the interest of the governor and the governed would be the same.
As the Adams cousins, received, read, and took to heart Joseph’s concerns and observations, Joseph was recovering from a demon attack. His forehead and the tip of his nose were skinned. His body was sore from his uncontrolled fall to the ground, and his thoughts were unclear. Colm forced Joseph to drink excessive quantities of rum before John Warren painfully reset Joseph’s dislocated jaw.
In a drunken, uncharacteristically tearful state within earshot of his brother, Joseph told Colm about his encounter with Margaret and his regret that he would never be a father to his own child. Joseph also bared his soul regarding Mercy, and the things he had done to lead her to believe that they might have their own children.
“How can I possibly live a normal life knowing what I know now?” Joseph lamented as he touched his painful jaw. He slowly swallowed a mouthful of rum.
Colm listened in silence. Human regret was a horrible burden that his rejection of Heaven had not lessened. Or maybe, it was his devotion to Joseph that had not lessened the burden.
Joseph finally fell asleep.
There was an insistent knock on Joseph’s bedroom door. John went to answer the knock. Colm heard John say, “He needs rest.” Then, “Yes, yes, I will relay the message to him.”
John quietly shut the door. “They never let him rest,” he whispered to Colm. “They act like children who cannot make a decision without him.”
The following day, a discussion took place in Hastings House in regard to securing the highlands in Cambridge and Charlestown. Although Israel Putnam and his men had established redoubts on some of the smaller hills, the redoubts recommended on the larger hills had not been built.
William Prescott and Israel Putnam were in favor of constructing those redoubts to provoke the British into coming out of Boston and fighting rather than wait for a possible siege.
“I think building redoubts and breastworks in the face of the British is a rash decision at this time,” Joseph advised Israel.
“I am in agreement with Dr. Warren,” General Artemas Ward said. He addressed William and Israel. “An offensive action on our part should be forestalled.”
“Forestalled until when?” William demanded.
Artemas looked at William as if he were daft. “Until the provincial army is better organized and supplied. You know very well that we are in short supply of gunpowder.”
“Mr. Bohannon, your experience far outweighs ours,” Israel said. He was delighted at the chance to speak to the archangel concerning matters of war. “What is your opinion?”
Colm was leaning against the meeting room back wall with his arms crossed over his chest. This type of strategy planning wasn’t what he was used to. He was used to conferring with Fergus and Seamus, if at all, and making the final decision on his own. As Heaven’s warriors, the archangels never conferred.
Colm’s palimpsest surfaced and whispered, the man Colm Bohannon once belonged to a larger army in Ireland.
Those memories are wit
h his soul, Colm argued.
But ya remember what happened that night in Wexford when he and his men ran out of ammunition, don’t ya?
Colm uncrossed his arms and stood up straight. “Have ya ever run out of ammunition during a battle, Colonel Putnam?”
“Of course not.”
“What do ya think will happen if ya run out of ammunition during a battle?”
Israel shot an uncomfortable look at Artemas.
“Ya don’t need my opinion. Ya need to answer the question,” Colm insisted.
“I do not think that will happen. The battle would have to go on—”
“Ya will die if ya run out of ammunition,” Colm said. “Is that so hard to understand?” His eyes flashed and Israel took a step back.
A drawn-out silence ensued, but it did not dim the individual convictions among the men in the meeting room.
There was another topic that needed to be discussed.
Artemas glanced at Joseph’s bruised jaw before he said, “Mr. Bohannon, we have heard rumors of the demons that pursue you and your angels. We know the woman who attacked Dr. Warren yesterday was possessed by a demon. Your men refuse to speak of it. Even, Dr. Prescott stays silent. Do you intend on telling us what else we may be facing besides the British army?”
Joseph and Colm exchanged a long look.
Then, Joseph told them the angels’ story.
By June 15, it was clear that the British were about to make a preemptive strike on Roxbury, Dorchester, and Charlestown. Joseph and the Committee of Safety decided that the provincial army must make a preemptive move of their own despite the shortage of supplies.
After determining that Fergus Driscoll’s army in Roxbury was not strong enough to take and hold nearby Dorchester Heights, the committee decided to implement a plan proposed by Israel Putnam. In the early morning hours of June 17, the provincial army, under the command of William Prescott, would seize the currently unoccupied high ground above Charlestown.
Joseph begged Colm to take his men and accompany William.
“I told ya, I’m not leaving ya without my protection,” Colm said, exasperated.
Joseph’s jaw was still painful, especially when he spoke. “If you do not go with William, there will be no one to protect,” he retorted. “This is the hour in which we must present our strength or all may be lost going forward.”
Colm said nothing. The hollow place where Liam’s spirit once resided would never heal. His fear of that place growing larger with every new loss wanted to control him.
Joseph grew impatient with Colm. “ARE YOU, OR ARE YOU NOT, GOING TO BE THE WARRIOR YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE? IF NOT, THEN WE NEED TO END THIS RIDICULOUS CAROUSEL RIDE!”
Colm looked down into his tankard of rum. The liquid rippled in his shaking hands.
Joseph covered his mouth with the splayed fingers of his left hand and sighed. The effort of yelling at Colm hurt his jaw, but that was the least of his discomfort. His hand slid from his mouth. “I feel the void Liam left in your spirit, in all your spirits, because I feel it in mine as well. Abigail told me she will never recover from his loss. Still, I cannot imagine losing someone who was a part of my life for millenniums.”
What Joseph did not say was—I cannot imagine losing you.
Colm drank the rest of the rum and set the tankard on the floor. He rose from his chair and pulled Joseph into his arms. He tried not to hurt Joseph’s sore body in his desperation to hold on to the human he should never have loved. Colm remembered the day Robert had threatened Joseph in the meetinghouse, and he thought of what he had told Joseph afterward. Archangels are merely beholders and preceptors. We don’t invest in the human condition.
He released Joseph. “We’ll do what ya want, but ya have to stay away if there’s a battle.”
“I cannot promise that.”
“Ya are needed by the people to lead the patriotic movement. Ya political position doesn’t warrant getting killed on the battlefield.”
“I will do what I must, even if that means going into battle only to offer care for the wounded and dying.”
Colm was unable to steady his shaking hands. “And what of ya major general’s commission? It’s what ya wanted, which tells me ya want to be more than a doctor on the battlefield.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do ya understand that the next time there’s a battle, it may be a real battle with the demons not just possessed men sprinkled among the troops?”
Joseph said nothing.
“DAMN IT! Every time ya ask me to do something like this is another time I don’t go after Henry! I need to do it before…before the rebels are faced with an all-out demonic battle! I CAN’T KEEP DOING THIS, JOSEPH!”
“Colm—”
“I need to be with my men,” Colm said. He walked out of the room and stormed up the stairs.
The angels, Gordon, Abe, and Jeremiah were in a cramped bedroom. The three men and Seamus shared the two small beds in the room. The windless June night was warm. Crickets chirped from somewhere in the darkness beyond the open windows. Ian, Brandon, Patrick, and Michael were lying on the floor atop the blankets stripped from the bed.
Colm sat beside Michael.
Michael sat up. “We’re all awake,” he said.
Gordon exhaled a loud snore.
He goads me even when he’s asleep, Michael thought.
“Then ya know what we’re going to do tomorrow,” Colm said.
“We do,” Seamus whispered.
“If a battle breaks out and something happens to me, ya will let Fergus take care of ya. I told him to stay away from us. I think it’s safer.”
Patrick was lying beside Michael. A cry of sorrow escaped him. He rolled over on his side.
Colm’s eyes stirred toward the sound, then to his brother’s face. He said, “Michael, I want ya to stay beside me, no matter what. Do ya understand me?”
Strangely, Michael thought about the girl whose scent had distracted him when he picked Joseph up from the ground after the demon attack. He had never had a second thought about a girl in his existence, not even after he created Nephilim.
He looked at his brother long and hard. “I understand,” Michael finally said. He understood the order, but he didn’t understand the reason behind it.
Colm put a hand on the back of Michael’s head and kissed Michael’s forehead. Then he said, “Abe and Jeremiah, ya don’t have to go with us. Neither does Gordon.”
A bed creaked as Seamus and Abe sat up. Gordon continued to snore.
Abe said, bitterly, “Colm, you cannot believe any of us would walk away. Not after everything we have been through together.”
“It ain’t just that,” Jeremiah interjected. “We’re patriots as much as Joseph Warren or William Prescott. This is our cause, too.”
“Indeed, it is,” Gordon murmured.
Michael squelched the urge to say something hateful now that Gordon was awake. But it was time to let go of his hatred. After all, Gordon had killed the demon that attacked Joseph and proven the validity of the Sigil of Lucifer’s power.
There was soft shuffling. Brandon sat up. His voice quivered, “I miss Liam. I can’t stop thinking about him. I can’t accept that he doesn’t exist anymore.”
Seamus sighed. “None, of us cain. We ain’t never gonna stop missin’ him and wonderin’ about him.”
Patrick rolled on to his stomach and buried his face in the blanket beneath him to muffle his sobs. Seamus slid off the bed and wedged into a sitting position between Brandon and Patrick. He tried to soothe his brother while his own tears wet his graying beard.
“It’s not…just Liam,” Ian said. “I miss Sidonie. I didn’t think I would. She wanted to teach me how to express love like men and women do. I didn’t understand the purpose. I still don’t.” He sighed. “She’s in Heaven, and I’m never going back there. Our spirits will never dwell in the same place.” He rustled his wings to comfort himself, and his red aura lit up the bedroom.
The dole
ful atmosphere reminded Gordon of what the master of the tobacco plantation, where his family lived, worked, and died, had told him the day he was given his freedom—the day Gordon’s demon-possessed father killed his wife and children. The bit of wisdom sounded silky as Gordon spoke the words. “Some things are not really gone if you look at it the right way.”
Colm closed his eyes and listened to the echoes of grief and regret in the room. His hand was still on the back of Michael’s head. He gently pressed Michael’s face against his chest and rested his chin on the top of Michael’s head.
Brandon released his yellow aura, and he huffed out a frightened laugh. “Patrick was afraid we wouldn’t be angels anymore if we rejected Heaven. Yet, I feel more like an angel than I have since we were banished. I feel stronger…less scared somehow.” He mumbled, “It has to be because we’re connected to Lucifer, because of the sigil. We’re disconnected from Heaven just like he is.”
Abe absently touched the sigil tattooed on his neck.
Patrick’s sobs quieted. He sniffed and sat up.
“Brandon has a point, Colm,” Seamus said. He studied his archangel’s face in the bright light of Ian’s and Brandon’s auras.
“We heard you and Joseph shoutin’ at each other. We heard you sayin’ somethin’ about not bein’ able to go after Henry because—” Seamus stopped himself from saying because of Joseph’s wishes. It wasn’t his place to question Colm’s decisions. “We’re better armed now, so when are we gonna have an all-out battle with the demons?”
Colm looked at Seamus.
“That’s what this is about, ain’t it, Colm? You think we might be walkin’ into a battle with Henry. That’s what all that talk about Fergus lookin’ after us is about.”
Angels & Patriots_Book One Page 42
