General Zhu nodded and vanished from view.
Lucifer sheathed his blade. “Oni, this fight will bring you more women and free drinks for eternity.”
Oni remained silent. He didn’t fight for free drinks or women. He fought for one woman, one family to protect for all eternity. He fought for his Kimmi.
56
Patricia thumbed the clip on her grenade. The spoon flipped away and she tossed the round object overhand into the AN-225 cargo space. She crouched. The blast erupted hard and distinct. On her feet and up the ramp she moved fast with the team around her. Smoke filled the cavernous cargo area as the lights above arced from thrown shrapnel. Blown glass from car windows crunched underneath the fighter’s booted feet.
Patricia faced three Mercedes Benz trucks peppered from shrapnel. A black Stryker military vehicle sat behind the Benzes. The smoke made her nose itch as the fighters worked their way through crates and other vehicles. Shots rang out. Ahead black clad soldiers fired on them.
She returned fire, her bullets catching one soldier in the chest. He died with a shocked expression on his face. The team continued through the cargo plane. Tight spaces slowed them down as armed targets popped up to fight and down they went riddled with hot lead. The attack became a stop and go gun battle the further they ventured into the large plane. She exhausted her ammunition and snatched up a black AK-47 sticky with blood and fought on.
The fighters stopped at a closed door. Above the door sat cameras. Each camera moved to focus on the people gathered near the entrance.
Patricia stepped forward. “David, come on out. The battle is over. If you give up now I will not kill you.”
“Fuck you.” His voice came scratchy over a speaker.
Patricia nodded. “C4,” she said and stepped back. A fighter attached four rectangular blocks against the metal door. They pulled back a safe distance and took cover.
Patricia flinched once the C4 exploded. The noise and shock from the blast slammed through her. Metal shot over their heads along with flames. The thick door landed far behind the group with a heavy clang. The team faced a metal staircase with a thin dented door cresting the top landing. Two dead guards lay on the landing, casualties from the explosion.
Patricia hefted her rifle and stepped from cover. The team climbed the stairs. She glanced at the mangled bodies at her feet, scorched blood pooled around her boots, the metallic scent flinched her stomach. No matter how much death she faced, dead bodies still unnerved her. A huge fighter kicked at the door, buckling the metal further. Other team members grabbed the door’s twisted edges and yanked the door open.
A grenade hurtled through the doorway.
Patricia hit the floor, her face landing in scorched blood. The grenade exploded amongst them. Someone heavy landed on her. Screams filtered through the noise, her ears ached. Hands grabbed her arms and hauled her up.
She forced herself to look up. The big man who opened the door laid dead at her feet, bloody holes covered his back. Thin smoke curled up from the wounds. A soot-smeared face graced her vision. A mouth moved before her eyes but the voice seemed to come from a tunnel filled with a ringing bell.
“Are you okay,” the voice echoed up to her.
Patricia nodded. The woman turned away as others entered a room decorated with leather couches and a bar on the far wall. Their weapons aimed at a man who stood behind a desk with his hands raised.
She shook her head, opened her mouth. Sound returned in a rush, a strong wind blowing into her ears. She stepped through the door. “David Brown.”
David Brown, with hands raised, shifted his gaze from one fighter to the other. “Patricia Jones. Do you know how many international and spiritual laws you are breaking?”
Patricia’s muscles tensed. She glanced down at the black rug decorated with a large red pentagram. “David Brown, you are under arrest.”
David laughed and lowered his hands. “Can you comprehend what is happening, Patricia?”
“The murders you committed are what I’m focused on, and stopping this war.”
“Murder? How can killing the followers of God be murder when they all fly off to Heaven anyway? I released them from their mortal pain. You should be thanking me. Instead you’re being a hypocrite.”
“You killed innocents, thousands, perhaps millions of people.”
“Patricia, Patricia. Right now Heaven is under siege. Lower your weapons, receive the three sixes and all will be forgiven.”
Patricia approached the desk David stood behind. “You are under arrest.”
“I’m not under arrest. Once Satan takes Heaven you will understand. Once he proclaims victory all your teeth gnashing and apologies might be too late.”
Patricia fought back the urge to shoot him. She wanted David alive. Death meant an escape for him. “I’m not making any deals with you.”
“This is not about making deals,” he said. “You’re blaming me for something we’re both guilty of doing. We invited Satan here.”
“We didn’t invite Satan here.”
David grunted. “War, hatred. Yes we invited him here. Earth sat ripe for takeover. No one considered God real, and we didn’t even acknowledge Satan existed.”
“You set off a nuclear weapon, murderer.”
David shook his head and eased from behind the desk and approached his bar. He stared at a bottle filled with amber liquid. “My weak wife died and took both my sons with her.”
Patricia lifted her AK-47, pointing the muzzle at him. “God offered you a choice.”
“A choice. Cancer, suicides, starvation, and mass shootings are choices? Those choices don’t sound so good to me, Patricia. Your sense of life is twisted. Satan isn’t asking you to be good or bad. He says to be. No rules, no bullshit. Bow once, burn the triple sixes on that big forehead of yours and you are set for eternity. Die once and come back now. Not a thousand years from now.”
Patricia slid her finger around the rifle trigger. “Turn around and place your hands behind your back, David.”
“Satan is here. I witnessed him rise from the earth. Where’s God and Junior, Uh?”
“Turn around.”
“…hiding behind high walls, watching all this, watching my wife murder my two sons.” His hand blurred up to the bar and swung out.
A flash and pop erupted from David’s hand. The bullet whizzed by Patricia’s head so close its heat singed the skin on her ear. She pulled the trigger on the rifle along with the fighters. David did a dance, his body jerking, arms twitching from the shock of being shot by so many rounds. Holes dotted his torso in red. He hitched up against the bar. The gun fell from his hand.
David opened his mouth, his tongue moved about. “I’ll return from Hell stronger.”
Patricia shook her head. “No you won’t,” she said and emptied her magazine into him. The rounds ripped open his chest. He toppled to the floor and died. The rifle warmed her hands, her trigger finger buzzed from the full automatic gunfire she sprayed over David.
“To the White House,” she said. “This is far from over.”
57
Patricia drove the Hummer onto the White House front lawn to find Resistance fighters surrounding men and women dressed in black jumpsuits. The Black Army captives sat on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs with plastic cuffs. She killed the Hummer engine and exited the truck. Other Hummers packed with fighters pulled up behind her.
Patricia’s right ear burned where David took the shot and missed, a low incessant ringing vibrated into her ear and seemed to thrum inside her skull. She shook off the pain and stopped before the White House entrance. She noticed the white façade marred by smoke residue and bullet holes.
Li, a fellow fighter, approached Patricia. “How do we scare them out, Patricia?”
Patricia studied the shattered windows, the broken steps. On the roof flew a black flag decorated with a red pentagram. “Did you clear the inside?”
“The White House is cleared,” Li said
.
“I need tear gas grenades.”
Li nodded and called up a few fighters. He shifted his head, bones cracked in his neck. “What’s the plan?”
“Cut the power and gas them,” Patricia said. She dropped the empty magazine, Li handed her a fresh one. Anger roiled inside her at how David allowed Satanists to defile the White House.
Patricia strapped the rifle over her back and led the fighters to the air vents embedded in the ground. She reached out a hand. A fighter gave her a gas grenade. The canister weighed comfortable in her grip as she slipped her right index finger into the ring and pulled the pin. She released the grenade, smiling as the grenade tumbled down into the metal vent. Other fighters released their grenades into several more vents. The grenades popped and hissed once they fell into the dark airshafts.
“Close the vents,” Patricia said. With both hands she pushed the circular vent flush to the ground and moved on towards the White House.
Patricia’s heart rate calmed after she killed David Brown. She decided to stop struggling against the fate placed before her. She inhaled three deep breaths, praying her soul did not become accustomed to the violence. As a Blackhawk helicopter pilot she learned how to stay in control when things got hairy. She prayed she didn’t lose her humanity, but the madness she faced hardened a place within her.
Her mind continued conjuring up the nuclear bomb blast. She owed the victims who suffered in the war her life. David’s death pulled no remorse from her heart. The way his arms and legs danced sent a chilled thrill through her. She smiled at the thought as she climbed the White House steps littered with empty bullet casings and dried blood.
Several fighters followed her inside. Death filled the halls with its coppery and singed flesh stench. Bullet holes disfigured the walls, pictures hung askew. A bloody palm print defaced an eighteenth century portrait of Washington. They walked into the Oval Office to face the steel elevator door leading into the command bunker. “If you have bandanas tie them on your face. CS gas will hurt you, and also, don’t kill these bastards if they’re unarmed. But beat them into submission if they don’t follow orders.”
“Rodger that,” a fighter said.
Patricia pulled a black bandana from her pocket and tied the cloth around her nose and mouth. She averted her eyes from the presidential desk. Underneath her feet, dried blood crusted the black carpet painted with a huge red pentagram. Her finger slid around the rifle trigger. Beyond the steel door came mechanical sounds. Oiled gears rolled, hydraulics began to operate as the elevator lifted from the command center depths. Her eyes narrowed at the door, the team pointed their rifles and readied themselves. A gentle bell sounded and the door slid open.
Several enemy soldiers rushed out with hands lifted up. Screams and coughs filled the air. Snot and saliva poured in strands from their noses and mouths. The fighters moved forward and with caution pulled the Black Army soldiers to the floor. A few fighters butt stroked the recalcitrant enemy soldiers until they complied.
Patricia searched the crowd for Armand. She kept her rifle trained on the surrendering group. The elevator door closed and descended again. “Where is he,” she said to the group. Their answers came in moans and curses. She butt stroked one across the head.
“Where is Armand,” Patricia said again.
A woman turned her head to Patricia, a purple bruise swelled from underneath her eye where Patricia struck her. “He’s still in the command center.”
Patricia stared at the closed steel doors as the mechanisms inside sent the elevator to the command center.
The elevator returned. The doors slid open, dumping another group into the Oval Office. With hands up, faces contorted in pain and smeared in saliva, tears, and mucus, the gaggle of prisoners stumbled ahead. No Armand appeared amongst the group.
Patricia licked her lips and picked out four fighters. “Hand me a gas mask,” she said. A man returned with five military gas masks. She slipped one over her head, cleared and sealed the mask rubber edges around her jawline. She pulled the black straps to obtain a secure fit against her face.
Li approached Patricia, masked and ready. “Can he escape from the command center?”
Patricia caught his muffled voice, but read his lips through the plastic face piece. “No, not unless he comes out the elevator,” she said and pointed at the elevator doors.
Li leaned forward. “You don’t have to go. We can do this, Patricia.”
“I can handle the job, Li. Trust me,” she said.
Li nodded. “Ok, Patricia. We’ll follow you.”
Patricia stepped into the elevator swallowing filtered air. Five fighters grouped around her. She intended to find Armand despite his effort to hide like a rat. She jammed her finger against the down button, the thick steel door closed and the elevator descended.
58
Joan stood on the battlements commanding a view both profound and horrible. Under a bright blue sky, Satan fielded over a million Hell Force soldiers, battle hardened and thirsty for slaughter. She inhaled three breaths to calm her tense muscles, blinked her eyes to clear them. The black armored enemies no longer moved about like feverish worms on rotted flesh. Their silence alone pulled the air taut like a garrote before tightening around a neck.
Their closeness made her skin itch and churned her stomach.
Joan climbed up into the murder hole to better survey the field. The Hell Force positioned itself a mile out from the wall, their vast numbers covered the plain. Hot wrath percolated within her veins. Satan intended to slaughter Heaven’s inhabitants. His gall to commit such an act, to violate God’s kingdom in such a way, made her want to wipe the army from the field all on her own.
“Joan,” a voice called up to her.
Joan jumped from the murder hole and landed on the walkway. She gazed below. Beneath her sat the First Gate. Michael stood near the immaculate door carved with scenes of Heaven. He waved his hand urging her down.
Joan leaped, her wings spread out and she landed before the archangel. “Michael,” she said.
Michael placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her away from the gate and up a path towards several shops. They stood underneath an awning. Its shade bringing cool air perfumed with strawberry’s delicious scent.
“What, Michael?”
Michael looked towards First Gate, its massive gold doors decorated with Heaven’s scenes. “How can I put this?”
“I’m use to bad news, so tell me.”
“Are you ready to fight Lucifer?” He gazed into her brown eyes.
Joan didn’t expect the knot to hit her stomach so hard. She took a breath. The strawberry aroma brought back memories, milkshakes, angel food cakes, and summer. The low pain tightened underneath her sternum.
“I fought him before and lost.”
Michael led Joan to a low bench. “Sit down.”
Joan sat. Her eyes studied Michael’s golden armor. The silk undergarment he wore shifted from the slightest breeze. “I failed when he attacked in France.”
Michael’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’re the one chosen, Joan. I’m not allowed to fight him.”
She gazed at the ground beneath her sandaled feet. A red ant crawled into a hole with a tiny green leaf clamped in its powerful jaws. “Why? I thought I’m to sacrifice myself by entering Oblivion.”
“Not so simple, besides It’s not the Second Coming so I’m out of play. Sort of.”
Joan gazed at Michael. “If I fail we suffer Oblivion and He will restart the universe.”
“Faith, Joan. Of all the angels in Heaven you are the special one.”
Michael drew his sword and held the blessed weapon out to her. “Take my sword and give me yours.”
Joan stared at Michael’s blade. Simple ash hilt with a beaten gold handgrip, minus the intricate artwork, and a blade so shiny its glint hurt her eyes. She drew her sword with its jeweled hilt, a crystal rainbow played against the shop walls when struck by the lights in the sky.
He reache
d forward and slid his own sword into her empty scabbard. “Be brave, Joan,” he said and took her weapon. “Your blade is missing a few Hello Kitty charms.”
Joan laughed and hugged Michael. The two embraced for a moment. She stood from the bench, and stilled her nerves. “I love you, Michael.”
“Same here, Joan.”
She ran her fingers over the smooth gold hilt, her thumb pressed against the knob. “Thank you.”
“I cannot be in the battle. But my sword can.”
Joan’s eyelashes flicked as she blinked. At first earth depended on her, now the entire universe with all its dark mysteries loomed before her like a tsunami. “This is a beautiful sword, Michael.”
“Yes,” he said. “Simple and elegant, but works.”
Shouts came from the walls. Screams erupted from the city as guardian angels rushed into the streets. Several horns blared throughout the kingdom. The deep noise drew out and echoed against the high walls.
Joan’s muscles tensed and Michael stood. “I’ll go up and find out what’s happening.”
Michael grabbed her forearm and held tight. “Remember this,” he said. “If Lucifer gets to God’s throne we are doomed. Jehovah will start again, even if his actions pain Him. That cannot happen.”
Joan nodded. “I understand, Michael.”
He held her gaze a few seconds longer before bounding off towards the palace.
Joan turned and headed for the wall.
59
Maria and Tobias stood in General Isaiah Gold’s command tent with several officers. Sergeant Boka stood outside the tent armed with her rifle.
Isaiah unrolled a map over a small wooden table. “I’m ignorant about fighting in ancient warfare.”
Maria glanced at Tobias who sucked his teeth and shook his head. “We’re almost out of time to teach you how to use the sword and shield, general.”
“God will teach us while in battle. I’ll consider the experience on the job training,” he said and pointed to the map. “The enemy will come from the west. The voice…”
Angels of War Battle of Archangels (Book 3) (Angels of War Trilogy) Page 23
