Oni mounted his warhorse and stared at the eternal city. He checked his heart, and found it devoid of love. His moment at the wall solidified any thought he nursed about Kimmie’s return to his arms. She could never love him, never be his after his fall and betrayal of the kingdom.
He dug his black spurs into the warhorse. The huge beast grunted compliance and galloped down the hill. The black ground sped underneath him. Satan said a few words, raised his hands and ducked back into the command tent. The warriors went back to work at a quicker pace. He wanted to ask Lucifer why the wait. What purpose did it serve when the Kingdom of Heaven lay at his feet?
Oni slowed the warhorse to a trot and rode through the camp. He dismounted at the main tent and trudged up a hill thick with mud and excrement. The Hell Force soldiers turned the once pristine grounds into an open sewer. His black boots sucked at the soupy ground. The soldiers around him sawed, chopped, slept and cooked. The continuous noise made his teeth ache and the filth made his skin itch.
Many wallowed in the offal at their feet like joyous pigs. Hell whores sexed demons out in the open. Lines formed as many waited their turn to indulge in the lustful grotesqueries.
Oni reached the massive tent guarded by two nine foot Hell guards who stood at attention once he approached. With an armored hand he swept aside the human skin curtain and entered a world where even the average demon feared to explore.
The tent ceiling rose one hundred feet above him. A hall painted in blood stretched out to his front where other doors branched off. Torches splashed the tent innards in red light. Human skin made up the great tent. Painted black on the outside and smeared with blood on the inside, the blood dyed skins made his eyes blur.
A stench he could not place filled his nostrils. The aroma suffused the air with a heavy sweetness like roasted pork seared over an open fire.
He moved deeper into the tent. Guttural laughter rose from partitioned rooms off the hallway. Grunts, curses, footfalls and screams reached him. Shadows and red light flickered as if a madman threw a party and invited his demented guests. Each step he took drew him further up the hall and deeper into the gloom.
Oni ignored the rooms and followed the long hall until it dumped him into a great rotunda. Its immense size stunned him. Lucifer’s hand must have created the illusion. The room appeared much larger than the tent on the outside. Then he realized where the questionable pleasant odor originated.
Several hundred long wooden tables filled the makeshift throne room. Bodies moved about, their voices grating against each other with foul language and rough laughter. To Oni’s right, far along the wall, sat twenty active braziers. Above each fiery pit, roasted humans turned on skewers, their flesh cooking to a crisp honey brown. The sight watered his mouth and unnerved him at the same time.
Juices dripped into the fires, grease popped, and the flames sputtered. Rendered fat sizzled. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate a good meal. Then he recalled Farmville, Virginia. Pancakes, salty Applewood bacon, tea and black coffee, his stomach growled, hunger assaulted him. But not for human food, he wanted food meant for demons.
The skewers turned alone from some dark power. The revelers just hustled up to the roasted meat, forked chunks onto their plates and walked away. Caldrons serving hot blood boiled not too far from the braziers, the iron tang reached his nostrils. The place catered to officers and Hell’s archangels, no foot soldiers roamed amongst Hell’s elite warriors.
A hard object bumped into Oni’s shoulder. He turned his head halfway, heat flashed through him. “Is there a problem?”
The archangel who bumped into Oni faced him. “I don’t trust you, Oni. I would call you by your slave name but Satan might torture me for my indiscretion.”
Oni’s muscles tensed. He gazed into the demon Bezel’s red face, at his canine teeth and many black horns over his head. The demon wore black armor decorated with scenes from Hell, dragons, rapes, and souls being beaten and strangled. “I remember you, Bezel. I shoved my blade up your angelic ass so hard you yelped like a kicked dog. I sent you to Hell.”
Bezel’s mouth opened, his fangs shown a blood red against the torchlight. A few other demons dressed in armor began to approach the two. “You haven’t been initiated, Oni.”
Oni swept his eyes around him. Several armored demons continued to surround them. Other black archangels stood in the shadows, cups in hands, meat piled high on their plates. “Satan anointed me as archangel.”
Bezel nodded. “So he did. But you were never initiated. You led an army onto earth you had no right in leading.”
“So is this what you’re angry about?”
Bezel opened his mouth, a noise came out. “I’m a demon, I’m always angry. My anger will die once we enter those gates in Heaven. Besides, I want to fuck that wife of yours you keep mewling over.”
Oni sucked in a breath. Red rage poured into him, his fists balled, he placed a hand on his sword hilt. “Bezel, I’m going to warn you once…”
Bezel laughed, it came out as several hard grunts. “Warn me, Oni. About what?” The huge demon placed a hand on his crotch and tipped his cup back, draining it before tossing the ugly vessel aside. “You walk around here like you’re second to Satan. And you haven’t earned the right.”
Oni’s eyes hooded. Several demons began to gather around the arguing demons. “I earned it, Bezel.”
Bezel shook his head and snapped his fingers. A lesser spirit scampered up to him with a gargoyle helmet and heavy sword in hand. The demon took the helmet, slid it on his head, set the chinstrap and grabbed the sword. The lesser spirit slipped back into the shadows. Bezel strapped on the sword. “No, Not yet,” he said and drew his blade.
The demons around the two warriors began chanting. The firelight brightened against the tent’s blood painted innards. More armored demons cheered on, some sat at the benches, pounding their heavy fist on tabletops. Others stood along the edges, near the food and drinks. The ones who formed a circle backed away so the others could see the fight.
Oni slid his blade from its sheath. The ground beneath his boots vibrated from the soldiers who stamped their feet upon the once green surface. His heartbeat seemed to match the steady thump-thump pounded out by the soldiers. He tightened his grip on the sword hilt.
Bezel grinned at him.
With one hand Oni swept up his blade and sent it down towards Bezel’s head. Bezel deflected the blow with his sword and swung the edged weapon at Oni’s head. Oni blocked the intended blow. Sparks erupted from their swords. Each demon began their struggle to put the other down.
The chants grew into a faster rhythm. More demons pounded on the tables and slammed their swords against shields. The two black archangels traded sword blows like enraged tennis players. Their crashing blades created a heavy metallic grate. Red sparks burst from their swords. Grunts lifted into the hot air from their efforts.
Oni drove his sword towards Bezel’s head. The demon slapped the blade away with his weapon. Bezel’s speed caused Oni to leap back. Bezel drove ahead, filling the space Oni abdicated. A smile jammed with canine teeth spread over Bezel’s red face. Oni ducked a blow and slid his sword across Bezel’s right knee, cutting off his leg.
Bezel screamed and hopped away from Oni. He crashed to the floor with blood pouring from his severed leg. “It’s not over, Oni.”
Oni took a second to study his handiwork, the severed half sat in the dust. Bezel rolled around in pain. A bellow rose from behind him.
Oni spun, caught off guard by the surprise attack. A massive black archangel with a bull’s head and a thousand eyes leaped from the crowd with a double war hammer in his grip. Oni dove, rolled from the monster’s locomotive path. The double hammers plowed into the ground.
Oni took to his feet, yet not fast enough. His black eyes picked out the double hammers swing towards him. The blow striking his chest, knocking him off his feet. Whatever wind sat in his lungs expelled. He soared in the air and crashed into a wooden table crowded
by Hell Force officers.
The crowd shouted their displeasure and scattered from Oni. The armored black archangel charged ahead, lifting his double hammers for another blow. “Earn your place.”
Oni tumbled to his left. The hammers smashed into the broken table, splinters and empty drinking cups hurtled into the air around him. Chants drove into Oni’s head making it hurt worse than the blow to his chest. He scrambled to his feet, sword in hand. The double Warhammer whistled towards his face. He took another blow, this time to the chin. The strike lifted his body up and back. Oni landed hard on the ground and the crowd went wild.
His vision blurred for a second and the archangel shook it away. He leaped to his feet. The thousand-eyed warrior swung his weapon again. His horrible double hammers cut through the air with a deep whistle. Oni jumped back, the hammers whooshed passed him. He timed his blow, waited a second until the momentum from the heavy weapon turned the beast to the far left.
Oni seized his sword hilt with both hands and made the cut. He lopped off the monster’s hands, sending his hellish weapon hurtling back into the crowd who broke and ran from the missile.
The beast bellowed his anger and stumbled away from the enraged archangel. Three demons armed with swords rushed from the crowd intending to do Oni harm.
Oni held his sword at the low guard. He recovered his battle rhythm and went at his attackers. The archangel cut off arms and legs, he knew the appendages would grow back, but the pain caused by regeneration rivaled the actual sword cuts. Blood splashed his black armor. Two more demons tried for him.
Their blades scrapped his Hell forged metal, sparks burst from his struck greaves, their screams filled the command tent and hardened the flesh between Oni’s muscled thighs. He loved the blood, the fight. He threw himself into the battle with an anger he thought impossible to summon. He lost his wife and child, Joan broke her promise to him, God broke His promise. Oni’s rage reddened his skin. He opened his mouth and a scream packed with hate exploded from his lungs.
Within seconds an armed crowd surged towards him, their yowls raised high into the tent, filling Oni’s ears. A black joy spread through him. He immersed himself in the battle, the demons fell in ones and twos, and their severed legs and arms decorated the dirt floor like a horrid garden.
“Stop.” A powerful voice boomed throughout the tent. Demons froze in their places.
Oni stopped. He stood erect with both swords in hand. Blood wetted his red face, two horns pushed up from his widow’s peak. “Lucifer.”
Satan approached the demons, both hands raised with a ghoulish smile spread across his face. “Oni,” he said. “You are truly a Hell spawn. Is he not, Bezel?”
Bezel stood from the floor with his lesser spirit next to him. The demon removed his helmet and unstrapped his sword and turned it over to the hunched being. “He is a Hell spawn, Satan. His heart is now pure.”
Lucifer threw his head back and howled like a wolf. He approached Oni. “Did you hear that, Oni?”
Oni remained still, both swords held in his hands. His black eyes darting about, unsure if Satan’s appearance happened to be a test also. “I heard him.”
Lucifer lowered his hands. “Replace your blades.”
Oni gazed into Lucifer’s red eyes filled with so much hate they pulsed. He slid his long and short swords into their sheaths and fell to one knee. “I obey your commands, Lucifer.”
Lucifer approached Oni and clapped him on the shoulder. “Rise, Oni. Stand.”
Oni rose to his feet and the demons around him set off a great cheer. The noise drummed against his ears, swords rattled against shields, fists pounded against wooden tables. “What is this?”
“Your initiation.” Lucifer guided Oni through the jubilant crowd and towards the meat skewered over the open flames. Once at the rack, the dark one waved a hand through the smoke, inhaling the fumes. “Have you ever tasted human flesh?”
Oni gazed at the crisped brown body before him. Juices from fat dripped into the flames, his stomach growled. “No.”
“You have not eaten since your arrival to Hell. Let me help you,” Lucifer said and motioned with his hand. A lesser spirit scurried up with a plate. Lucifer snatched the plate away and picked up a serving fork next to the meat. He poked the fork prongs into a thigh.
Oni swallowed, his stomach rumbled, a deep ache assaulted his gut. Saliva bubbled from between his lips and slid down his chin. He licked his lips as Lucifer prodded the meat. Juice spurted from the succulent thigh like tears. His mouth watered.
“I’m hungry,” Oni said like an adult child eager for dinner.
He could not phantom why the sudden and great hunger. He closed his eyes and tried to fight it off, yet the smell, the sweet smell akin to roasted pork made him salivate like a dog.
Lucifer grinned, his eyes held Oni. He ripped at the thigh, red meat burst from the brown outer crust. A sweet aroma perfumed the air. “The spices,” he said and placed the meat onto the plate. “Bring this demon warrior something to drink.”
Bezel arrived with a cup filled with hot blood. He held it up to Oni.
Oni took the plate, and with his fingers he lifted the cooked flesh to his lips and shoveled it into his mouth. He tasted cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar. He licked his fingers and smacked his greasy lips, an act he once found detestable. He took the cup from Bezel’s hand and drank deep. Blood ran in streams down his chin, his Adam’s apple bobbed. The blood’s thick coppery taste cut his thirst and the food infused him with strength. Oni ate the meat and slid his tongue over the plate.
Lucifer laughed and slapped Oni on the back. “You are now one of us.”
Oni gazed at the clean plate. A distant shame tried to struggle up from a far place within him. He blocked out the soft thoughts. “I am. Evil,”
Lucifer leaned close to Oni’s ear. “What do you want?”
Oni’s lips parted, his black eyes shifted to Lucifer’s. “I want to lead the attack against Heaven’s walls.”
“Then you shall.”
Oni took the serving fork from Lucifer’s hand and returned to the brazier for seconds. He forgot about his question to the dark lord. The answer appeared to him clear enough. True hate took time to nurture and build. And Oni hated.
33
President David Brown sat at his desk in the Oval Office. Armand stood at the window, gazing over the bleak cityscape stretched out before him. He sipped water from a glass while his three disciples knelt in the Oval Office southern corner with the black bible open.
David shuffled papers on his desk and signed a few forms. He gazed back at Armand. “So far the battles are going in our favor. The Black Army has taken several major cities throughout the world. What are we going to do after this?”
“Go to Disneyland,” Armand said followed by a dry chuckle. He turned from the window and pulled up a chair near David’s desk. “Israel has not fallen. Why?”
David leaned back in his soft chair. “I don’t know. Spies have informed me they are no longer fighting the Palestinians.”
“Are they in a truce?”
David hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know, Armand.”
“You do not know much of anything lately, David,” he said and sipped from his glass. “I want Israel destroyed. China is ripping itself apart, the British are still fighting it out, and Rome has fallen. The only power I can think of that will stall us from total domination is Israel.”
David smiled. “Israel,” he said. “Too tiny, Armand. We can save Israel for dead last. What about Russia? By the way Joan visited me.” He glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. “I told her to fuck off before I shove another nuke down her throat.”
Armand nodded and gazed up at the gray sky visible through the hole in the roof. Workers busied themselves with a heavy green tarp to cover the opening. “What happened in the Pentagon?”
David stood from his desk. “Someone broke into the Inner Sanctum and sent a bug into the nuclear system.”
“Yo
u’re telling me you can’t fire off anymore missiles.”
“Yea,” David said. He turned to Armand and tried to hide the relief on his face, he hated nukes. “It’s all conventional warfare now.”
“Soon we will be back to bows and arrows if we don’t get the infrastructure working again. I was looking at the fortress vents. Are they still alive down there?”
David frowned. He didn’t want to deal with what sat deep in the fortress. “I don’t know if they are alive or dead. I haven’t heard anything from anyone down there since our first attacks.” He signed his signature on a few more forms and laid aside his pen. “What’s bothering you, Armand?”
Armand leaned forward. “Something isn’t right.”
“You are the most powerful man on the planet, almost the universe once they finish kicking God out of Heaven.”
“That attack last night disabled our nukes. But the angels have not attacked us in mass. They have to know we are out here in the open. I don’t want to be in the open, David.”
“You have a point. What are you thinking?”
Armand tapped his foot on the black carpet beneath him. “We need somewhere very secure to hide.”
“Well the underground fortress is very secure. The angels won’t find us down there unless someone rats us out. But that place might be filled with dead bodies, Armand. The smell would take weeks to clean out.”
“Then clean it out, David. I want that to be our new command center. Can the technicians get the power on?”
“I’ll call them to give it a shot. You can command the army from the digital maps down there.”
“Well let’s crack her open and see what’s inside.”
An hour later President David Brown stood near the elevator door into the underground fortress with Armand and his three disciples dressed in black robes. They waited for two hours as technicians worked to get the power on for the elevator.
Angels of War Battle of Archangels (Book 3) (Angels of War Trilogy) Page 13
