Battle Scream (The Battle Series Book 1)

by Mark Romang

  Lord, I would rather do anything but this. This trial is so difficult. I want it to end.

  The prayer had barely left his thoughts when he saw the first demon arrive. Without warning the demon just materialized. The dark spirit didn’t scale the summit from below or land from above. It simply emerged.

  Three more demons arrived seconds later. Maddix stared in awe. He could see faint glimpses of glory shimmer off their powerful forms. Without a doubt they were once high ranking servants in Heaven, grandiose messengers under God’s command. Now they were nothing more than doomed creatures destined to one day burn in hell for following Lucifer. Yet they were still dangerous opponents, formidable and crafty.

  “Are you seeing this, Mad Dog?” Webb whispered.

  “I see them. And I smell them too. They smell like struck matches.”

  “How many are there supposed to be?”

  “Twelve, I think.” One by one they arrived. And with each arrival Maddix felt his resolve waver a little more. I will fight these demons, Lord, because I believe it is your will I do so. But if there is any other way, please take this fight from me.

  This wouldn’t be the first time he’d fought a battle without knowing the reason behind its necessity. He and Webb had both gone on missions in Iraq and Afghanistan where they hadn’t been given a reason why they were there. Ultimately, they had to trust the higher-ups and proceed with their appointed task, whether they liked it or not.

  In less than a minute twelve hulking warrior demons stood on Angels Landing no more than thirty yards from Maddix and Webb. The demons welcomed each other and mingled together like humans at a cocktail party.

  Maddix turned toward Webb. “I’m putting my fire hood on now. Is the FLASH launcher ready and armed?”

  “Yep, it’s ready to turn up the heat,” Webb answered quietly.

  “Okay. After I get my hood on I’ll make a fist with my right hand. That’s your cue to fire. Be sure to fire low at their feet. I don’t want the rockets sailing off and into the canyon. The whole place will burn up.”

  “Gotcha, Mad Dog. Let’s incinerate some demons.”

  Maddix pulled the Nomex hood over his head and snapped it in place. His viewing window consisted of a small flame-resistant visor stitched inside the hood. He still wore NV goggles, but his vision remained poor. There was a breathing apparatus that came with the suit, but Maddix preferred not to use it. At most he would be operating in the superheated air for one minute. He wouldn’t smother in that short time.

  Maddix pulled on his elbow-length fire gloves. He scanned his body from head to toe to make sure the fire suit left no part of his body exposed. Satisfied, he picked up the Eden sword and transferred it to his left hand. He showed his right fist to Webb.

  Webb hoisted the FLASH launcher—Flame Assault Shoulder weapon—up onto his right shoulder. He held the pistol grip underneath the front of the weapon with his left hand. The M202A1 is a four-barreled bazooka that fires incendiary rockets filled with TPA—a thickened, organometallic pyrophoric agent that burns spontaneously at temperatures up to 2,192 degrees Fahrenheit. Maddix instructed Webb earlier in their pre-op briefing to fire two rockets into the demon mob.

  It was a big risk using the FLASH launcher, but Maddix needed something to even the odds. Twelve demons against one man would be his own personal Alamo. He watched Webb pull the trigger. A rocket streaked out the weapon and into the demons near their ankles. The M235 warhead opened and its burning gel caught the demons aflame.

  Unlike a Hollywood thriller, a billowing fireball didn’t punch the sky, just a medium-sized explosion. But all twelve demons ignited into blazing torches as soon as the gel splattered their bodies. Maddix clenched his right fist again. Webb complied and fired one more rocket into the demons.

  Maddix took off straight for the demon conflagration. He didn’t have time to waste. He wanted to fight the demons while their attention was diverted by the flames, while they were confused. Maddix scrambled up the narrow sandstone ridge, his legs pumping. His Nomex-covered boots struggled to find purchase. He tried not to think about the open expanse to either side of him. One misstep and he would plummet to his death.

  Fortunately he had climbing aids to help him. There were log chains bolted into the rocks. The chains helped hundreds of brave souls climb the summit every day. Maddix grabbed the chains to help keep his balance and charged up the steep ridge and into the superheated air. He felt no pain as he entered the 2,000 degree air, only a sweat inducing heat. It was early in the battle, but so far the fire suit protected him as advertised.

  Maddix kept his eyes trained on his adversaries, eschewing the temptation to watch the uneven terrain. He noticed right away the demons exhibited odd behavior. They milled around together without purpose, bumping into each other and jostling each other as if caught up in a fiery mosh pit. He hoped their strange actions meant God had answered his prayer and muddled their senses.

  Maddix transferred the Eden sword back to his right hand. He wagged it around enough to make it ignite. And then he muscled his way into the flaming horde. He plunged the Eden sword into the closest demon, yanked the sword out and pivoted. He moved to the next fallen angel, all too aware of a dark force bearing down on him. The aura of evil threatened to overwhelm him. More palpable than the extreme heat, the wickedness came at him from every direction. The malevolence encapsulated him like an ocean wave crushing a surfer.

  I am a child of God. The Holy Spirit has sealed my soul, Maddix cried silently as he swung the sword with malice. He focused his energy on his opponents and did his best to ignore the otherworldly darkness toying with his saneness.

  A demon came at him, completely engulfed in flames, his face twisted in agony. Maddix slashed at the demon’s head and felt the Eden sword slice through the demon’s neck. Silvery-black blood squirted from the severed neck. The demon’s head lolled and hung limply off his shoulders. Only a small tendon kept it from dropping to the ground. An eardrum piercing scream escaped the dangling head. Maddix plunged the Eden sword into the nearly headless demon. He tried not to impale the demon’s chest too deeply, just enough to neutralize him. It took too much time, time he didn’t have to pull the flaming sword from a demon impaled all the way through.

  Maddix fought with urgency. He didn’t want to spend more than a minute in the superheated air. And he also wanted to retreat from the evil presence gathered atop Angels Landing. His frail human mind couldn’t withstand such horror for very long. He tried to think of other things besides his shuddering fear. He thought of all the destruction brought on by Lucifer’s treason: wars and famine, tyranny, poverty, slavery, terminal diseases, addictions, terrorism, abused children, birth defects, and death. The list of atrocities went on and on. And then he thought of the ancient apostles crucified and stoned for following Jesus and sharing his teachings, and of modern day missionaries martyred for spreading the Good News to foreign lands. Maddix used these thoughts as motivation to battle harder.

  But as one demon after another succumbed to the Eden sword, he came to realize he wasn’t fighting alone. A force infinitely stronger than the demons had taken over his body. His limbs seemed to move without receiving instructions from his brain. It was as if he was a puppet manipulated by a hidden puppeteer.

  In fact, even the demons appeared to be controlled by this superior force. The demons acted befuddled and practically threw themselves at the Eden sword. Maddix counted seconds in his head as he slaughtered the demons. He’d been in the superheated air for nearly 40 seconds. Even though the air should begin to cool soon, he didn’t want to test his fate and the Nomex fire suit for too much longer.

  Three more demons remained to be neutralized. The fallen angels looked like fiery pillars. Flames lapped the demons from head to foot and lit up the sky a crematory-orange. Maddix charged the demons. He sensed the end, could almost taste victory. His confidence surged. He extended the Eden sword. Two demons flung themselves at the sword’s flaming tip, performing seppuku.r />
  The Eden sword plunged through both demons. The demons let loose garbled squawks and fell onto Maddix, and all three combatants toppled to the rocky ground. The impact purged his lungs. Maddix gasped for air even as he came face to face with the first demon. Terror deformed the demon’s face. Liquefied eyes, melted from the superheated air, spilled down its flaming head.

  Inside his Nomex hood, Maddix screamed. Repulsed, he thrashed and bucked the demons off him, nearly spilling off the summit in the process. Maddix rolled away from the monolith’s edge and lurched to his feet. He placed a boot on the vanquished demons and withdrew the Eden sword.

  Panting for air, he looked all around for the last demon, his final challenge, but couldn’t see it anywhere. He spun carefully on his feet and looked in all directions. Maddix kept count of the demons as he neutralized them. He was sure one remained.

  Something warned him to look up.

  The last demon dropped from the coal-black sky. This demon was not aflame like the others and it swung a scimitar. Maddix instinctively lifted his left arm to block the curved blade from severing his head. The scimitar cracked against his forearm. Maddix staggered backward. The superheated air stung his left arm where the scimitar sliced open the lightweight, aluminized-glass Nomex fabric. Maddix fought to regain his balance.

  The large demon charged him. Still reeling backwards, Maddix thrust the Eden sword upward toward the demon’s chest as if he were throwing an uppercut punch. But his poor balance caused his aim to betray him and the sword perforated the demon’s chin and plunged through the back of the fallen angel’s head. The blow must have severed vertebrae because the demon dropped to the ground and lay still. The demon hissed and squalled but didn’t move. I paralyzed it, Maddix thought. He pulled out the flaming blade from the demon’s neck and plunged it back down into the beast’s chest with as much angry violence as he could muster. The demon opened its mouth wide and screeched for several seconds but then fell silent. Maddix pulled out the Eden sword from the demon’s chest cavity. Silvery-black blood gurgled out the hole and onto Maddix’s boots.

  Maddix turned and stumbled down the ridge. He grabbed the log chains bolted into the rocks. Exhaustion crippled his legs. He could barely make them work. Down from the ridge, away from the heat, he came to a flat area. Maddix dropped his sword and collapsed onto the level sandstone. The Eden sword hissed out. Steam billowed off its molten blade. Webb and Sara arrived a few moments later with the CO2 extinguishers and sprayed him.

  When they stopped hosing him down, he reached up and unsnapped his fire hood. He needed fresh air. He’d just about used up the small amount trapped under the hood. Sara helped him remove the hood. Maddix sucked in the mountaintop air, no longer pristine but contaminated with a sulfurous reek. The word ‘brimstone’ wafted in his thoughts.

  “Are you okay, Andrew?” Sara asked.

  “I’m fine for the most part. My forearm stings, but I think it’s nothing serious,” Maddix answered. He looked back toward the ridge. The vanquished demons littered the summit. A few of them still burned, but most only smoldered. They needed to spray the demons down with the CO2 extinguishers. He didn’t want the wind to carry embers over to the scrubby vegetation growing on the monolith and down into the canyon. “I got them all, Sara, every last one of them. It’s over,” he panted.

  Sara tousled his sweaty hair. “I’m so glad you’re alive and okay. I didn’t think anyone could survive that.”

  “I’ll tell you about it later. It was miraculous. God was with me on the summit. I felt Him fighting alongside me. But right now we need to spray the demons down with the CO2.”

  “I can’t see them, Andrew, remember? We didn’t have enough manna.”

  “Everywhere you see a fire or glowing embers and smoke, you can bet a demon is there.” Maddix stood up and grabbed an extinguisher. He looked around. “Where’s Webb?”

  “I don’t know. He was right here beside me a second ago.”

  Maddix spun on his heel and looked around. A sick feeling washed over him. Bile rose up into his throat. Maddix looked back down near where he dropped the Eden sword on the flat sandstone rock. The rock was barren save for his fire hood.

  “You don’t think he fell, do you?” Sara asked.

  “If he did, he took the sword with him. Come on, let’s go back up on the summit and look for him. You take the west side and I’ll cover the east side. We’ll meet in the middle.”

  “Is it safe up there? Do I need to wear a fire suit?”

  “The air has cooled significantly by now. You’ll be fine, Sara.”

  They hurried as fast as they dared up onto the ridge. They each moved as close to the edge as they could, dodging the neutralized demons when they had to, and looked down. Maddix saw nothing on the east side, but Sara soon called out his name. “Andrew, come quick. I think I see a parachute drifting down into the canyon. I think Webb base-jumped off Angels Landing.”

  Chapter 38

  Zion Canyon

  Drifting 500 feet above the dark canyon floor, Coleton Webb tugged gently on his right toggle. The small adjustment turned the ram-air canopy toward the right and away from a rocky outcropping. Base jumping is arguably the most dangerous of all extreme sports, and performing a base jump at night amped up the difficulty factor by ten. Webb made the jump even more difficult by holding a giant sword in his left hand.

  The Eden sword still radiated considerable heat. It seared his hand. Second-degree burns likely blistered his left palm. But he wasn’t about to release the sword. A collector in Las Vegas agreed to pay him four-million dollars for it. The only stipulation the buyer insisted on was that the sword ignite into flame.

  Webb felt awful for betraying Maddix, but his circumstances demanded he do so. He couldn’t turn down that much money. His gun and knife store dipped so far in the red he needed a miracle to turn it around. And this sword is definitely miraculous, Webb thought.

  Webb was the youngest of four sons. His father, Jackson Webb, owned an architectural firm that designed sporting arenas and stadiums. He was a millionaire several times over. But Jackson demanded his sons find their own way in life. He repeatedly promised all four sons that they would receive a hefty inheritance when he died. But until that moment, Jackson Webb insisted his boys wouldn’t get a penny of his fortune.

  Like their father, Webb’s older brothers all possessed keen business sense. His oldest brother was a senior partner in a law firm. Another brother served as a bank president. And Clayton Webb, the second youngest son just received a Grammy nomination for his third country music album. And that left him, a struggling businessman facing bankruptcy. But that was about to change in a hurry.

  The brush-clogged canyon floor rushed up at him. Webb snapped out of his browbeating and tugged on both right and left toggles, flaring his parachute. His descent slowed dramatically. His hiking boots contacted the ground seconds later, and he performed a perfect stand-up landing.

  Webb stuck the Eden sword into the ground. He then slipped out of the chute’s backpack and hastily stuffed the chute back into the backpack. He needed to work fast. Maddix would be on to him quickly, if he wasn’t already. After he finished packing the chute, Webb wriggled back into the backpack. He removed a GPS receiver from his cargo pants and checked his location in relation to his destination.

  Earlier in the day, just before heading for the Hurricane airport, he’d stashed a Yamaha WR450F enduro motorcycle refitted with a 6.6 gallon fuel tank in some thick brush a half-mile southwest of Angels Landing. He planned to ride the dirt bike almost all the way to Las Vegas, keeping off major roads and highways and staying in the desert as much as possible.

  His direction oriented, Webb withdrew the Eden sword from the ground and broke into a jog.

  ****

  Kyle Miller flew his MD-500 helicopter fifty feet above the canyon floor. Sara and Maddix sat in the back of the cabin. Sara peered out the portside while Maddix gazed anxiously out the starboard side. Twenty minutes had a
lready ticked by since Webb jumped. They lost considerable time hosing down the demons and any lingering warm embers. And then it took even more time to get the extinguishers and FLASH launcher loaded back into the chopper. The summit was way too narrow for Kyle to land on. Cody had to haul the gear up by ropes. Sara and Maddix then climbed the fast rope back into the helicopter.

  “I wish we had infrared cameras,” Maddix grumbled. Without them they didn’t stand much of a chance at finding Webb.

  “If I remember right, he’s dressed in black,” Sara said. “He’s going to be hard to spot.”

  “Without a heat signature we’re probably not going to find him.”

  “Maybe we should search on foot. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

  “I’m not so sure. He had this planned out. So he probably had a dirt bike or ATV stashed somewhere.” Maddix couldn’t get over Webb’s treachery. He thought he knew Webb better than anybody, better than himself. The betrayal cut deep, all the way to his bones. But worse than Webb’s crime was the fact the Eden sword may never be recovered. One of the most sacred religious artifacts in history had been entrusted to him. And he’d blown it, allowed the sword to be stolen right out from underneath him.

  “What do you think he’s going to do with the sword?”

  “He’s going to sell it. Webb is always angling for a buck,” Maddix said.

  “We can’t let that happen, Andrew. We have to find him.”

  Cody got up from his seat in front and joined them. “Kyle says we need to think about heading back to the airport.”

  “Let me guess, we’re running low on fuel,” Sara said. “I’m beginning to think this helicopter has a fuel leak.”

  Maddix turned away from the Plexiglas window and pulled out his cellphone. He punched in his apartment’s landline number. He thought Webb might have called his home number and left a message. It was a longshot, but he ached to know the reason behind Webb’s betrayal. Maddix heard his landline ring four times. The answering machine picked up. He had one message. Maddix listened intently. But instead of Webb’s voice he heard Jack Crenshaw’s voice. And the police officer’s somber tone captured his attention instantly.