Angels of War Battle of Archangels (Book 3) (Angels of War Trilogy) Read online

  A dim voice reached his ears. He slid his armored hand along the wall until his fingers curled at the crack where the stones fitted together. “Kimmie,” he said and pressed his left cheek to the cool stone. He slid to the soft ground and moved to the crack, a space large enough for a six-foot man to crawl through.

  The crack revealed to him a world he lived in centuries ago. Oni’s eyes burned and watered from the pure atmosphere. His vision blurred. “Kimmie,” he said and thought about her with all his strength. And just for a second her breath touched his nostrils and its purity burned and clogged his throat and lungs like pepper spray.

  Oni jerked from the hole. The pain scorched his lungs with an intolerable white fire. He wanted to scream. His hands balled into fists and he pounded the ground. “Fruitless,” he said and struck a fist against the wall.

  The black archangel staggered to his feet with blood oozing from his eyes, mouth, and nose. His soul no longer belonged to God. Satan owned him, and any thought he once entertained about forgiveness and mercy to his enemies dissolved in fury and red hate.

  Oni stumbled and ran through the forest until he broke from its claustrophobic confines. The pool lay before him. He needed to quench the burn in his lungs and knelt along its muddy edge.

  Once he dipped his hands into the water a new burn ripped through him. The black archangel screamed and threw back his head. He leaped to his feet, glaring at his hands, expecting them to be swallowed in flames.

  The pure air and water turned into a poison no Hell spawn could tolerate for long. His mouth opened in a rictus. A red light bloomed from behind his eyes and he knew without further debate his wife and son could never be with him. Even if he reached out to touch them he would burn from the effort.

  Oni sucked in a breath, even his gums bled and burned. The harshness he suffered through his fiery baptismal paled to what he faced now. An eternity without his family would crush him. His red eyes held his hands for a few seconds. He turned their red glare towards the great wall above. The angels still did not see him below, their eyes no doubt mesmerized by the great scene spread out beneath them.

  He decided to throw all caution away and face Lucifer. If the dark one could not muster the courage to attack the walls then he would rally the Hell Force and attack alone.

  26

  Patricia Jones reached the safe house tucked away within the Virginia woods. The gray skies darkened. A howl broke through the dense oaks, the fine black hairs on her arms stiffened. Shadows crawled into the forest. Branches from trees seemed to reach towards her like broken fingers. The wind chilled a little deeper and darkness folded over the woods like black crepe paper.

  Patricia stopped at the safe house and allowed her rifle to swing free on the strap at her front. The meager daylight faded out. She reached forward and touched the safe house door. Her hackles raised as the night creatures came out to hunt and creep through the woods. She wanted to get inside fast.

  Patricia pulled a tiny flashlight from her pocket and turned it on. The white beam flooded the door’s keypad panel and ruined her night vision. She cursed at her amateur fumble. With steady hands she held the beam on the keypad cover and flipped it up. The panel glowed a gentle lime green, just enough for her to make out the numbers. Her fingers raced over the keypad to enter the numbers. The safe house front door clicked, she drew her Glock from its holster. Patricia seized the handle and swung the door open.

  She swept the light inside the small building and held her handgun out to her front. She closed the door with her foot and slid her hand along the wall to her left and turned on the lights.

  The lights bathed the room in a fluorescent glow. A man in the far corner held up his hands and she trained her Glock on the stranger.

  “Who are you?”

  “Master Sergeant Jason Aries, ma’am.” He sidestepped to show his armor on the floor. “I was arranging my armor.”

  Patricia licked her dry lips. “How did you get in here?” Her finger remained on the Glock’s trigger.

  The man lifted his hands higher. “General Black sent me. Remember?”

  Patricia gazed at the man’s rugged face and the beautiful armor on the floor. “Lower your hands, sergeant.”

  “Lower your weapon, ma’am. I’ve been through a lot and I don’t want to get this far to get shot by a friendly.”

  Patricia holstered the Glock and Jason lowered his hands. “Patricia Jones,” she said and stuck out a right hand. Jason crossed the room and shook Patricia’s hand. “You guys are still alive?”

  Jason nodded. “Fifteen thousand of us, plus the angels.”

  “And Joan? Is she still alive?”

  Jason smiled. “Yes she is. She sent me.”

  Patricia swallowed a deep breath and swept her eyes over the safe house decorative innards. A new leather sofa sat in one corner, a kitchenette in the other and a bedroom in the back with a bathroom off the short hall. Stock pictures with grazing deer and hunting dogs covered the walls.

  Jason gestured to the back room. “The weapons are back there. You should change your clothes into something darker, and drier.”

  Patricia fought away the tears. “You know I tried to stop those nukes. I wasn’t fast enough.”

  Jason held up a hand. “It wasn’t your fault, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call me that. My name is Patricia,” she said and eased over to the kitchenette. “This went from bad to worse. How could David do this?”

  Jason walked to the refrigerator and opened it. Inside beer and water bottles stacked every shelf and slot. He took two water bottles, opened them and handed one to Patricia.

  Patricia took the bottle and drank deep. The cold water refreshed her and gave her a slight headache. “When do you want to go?”

  “Now,” Jason said. “It’s just getting dark and these guys are not too professional.”

  “Are you going to wear your armor?”

  “No.”

  “Won’t you die without it?”

  “Besides dying with it on if we lose our heads, yes I will die without it. But you’re not wearing any armor either.”

  Patricia sat the cold bottle aside, her fingers numbed and the pain brought a slight smile to her face. “All this death and madness. I want it over.” She gazed at her rifle. “I was a Blackhawk pilot downrange. What did you do before this war?”

  “I was, still am, 5th Special Forces…Patricia. You were also the presidential advisor to President Raymond Wallace.”

  “Yes, I was. Poor Raymond.”

  “He did his duty.”

  Patricia pressed her lips together, her eyebrows tensed. “That he did.” She looked at Jason. “If I get shot, complete the mission, sergeant. Don’t wait for me.”

  Jason’s face broke into a grin. “Same to you, ma’am.”

  Patricia walked to the back room with Jason behind her. Inside she found a bed with an old fashion metal frame and a mattress covered in chenille blankets. An oak dresser sat against one wall with two matching nightstands and a huge cabinet.

  “Where are the weapons?’

  Jason walked to the bed and slid it aside. He knelt to the hardwood floor and dug his fingers into a crease then slid a wide panel aside. Underneath the panel sat a metal door with a combination lock embedded in it. “Right here.”

  Patricia watched him finger the combination lock then pull up the heavy door. Inside sat metal stairs leading down into a basement. Jason slipped into the darkness, a chain jingled and the lights below came on.

  “Anything interesting down there?”

  “Lots,” Jason said. A plastic package flipped from below and landed on the floor. “Try those on.”

  Patricia picked up the bag and ripped it open. Inside sat a black and gray camouflage uniform. She striped down to her panties and bra and dressed where she stood. Jason tossed another item up from the arms room.

  She picked up the ballistic vest and pulled it on. He tossed out a black mask. “A balaclava?”

  �
�Yup,” he said. Metal and plastic rattled below followed by a few grunts. Jason emerged from the room with two rifles and several bandoliers strapped over his shoulders.

  “What’s wrong with my M4, Jason?”

  Jason placed the load onto the bed. “It’s too noisy. These are silenced weapons,” he said and pointed at the black, blocky rifles equipped with silencers and stubby scopes. “…and very new. I always wanted to fire one of these.”

  Patricia gazed at her own weapon and set it aside. “Those are C.I.A. rifles. I didn’t know they had them.”

  Jason smirked. “Well now you know,” he said and opened the bandoliers to remove the packaged bullets. “These rounds create a tiny detonation upon impact. Whoever we shoot will not live.”

  Patricia lifted the new rifle. It measured one and a half feet, almost rectangular except for the silencer on the muzzle and the scope attacked to its top. She took a strap from the bed and clipped the ends on a metallic loop near the pistol grip. A light attachment sat forward near the muzzle.

  “It’s very light,” she said. “Lighter than my M4.”

  Jason dressed in his camouflage and pulled his balaclava on like a skullcap. He used black camouflaged paint to grease around his eyes. “We’re going in and out very fast, Patricia.”

  He smeared black rogue on his wrists then slipped on black shooter’s gloves. He tossed the camouflage paint and new gloves towards Patricia Jones.

  Patricia camouflaged her face. Despite her brown skin, the camouflage would keep any sweat from glistening at night. She pulled her hair up in a bun and pulled the balaclava on her head like a cap as Jason did.

  Jason tossed her a small backpack and pulled on night vision goggles connected to a harness over his head. “The bag, it’s filled with ammo, water, and some food. This will not take all night I hope?”

  Patricia shook her head and fitted her night vision goggles on. “I need to get in and upload the virus. That is all. Then we are out and gone.”

  Jason inhaled a deep breath. “Are you ready for this?”

  Patricia hefted the new weapon. A smile crept to her face. “I want payback, Jason. Let’s shut these motherfuckers down.”

  27

  Joan entered the medical tent General Black set up. The wounded filled up the makeshift hospital and overflowed outside as Guardians dressed in armor tried to comfort the victims who suffered from the nuclear blast. The Guardians did the best with what they scrounged up.

  The archangel stepped out the tent and into the semi-blackness. Campfires burned, a few cell phones and pads glowed in muted colors, and gas generators hummed. Guardians strung up battery-powered lanterns within the tent and outside on the ground to form lighted pathways.

  Joan walked towards the Rio Grande, fell to her knees, closed her eyes and prayed. She knew Jehovah heard her, yet His decision not to interfere remained final. All the tears and begging would not absolve her from the task He set out for her to accomplish. Silence filled her head as she listened for His voice. A dead silence greeted her ears, but a patient silence, like a parent watching their child perform their first monumental task.

  Joan stood to her feet and walked ahead into the cold water. She turned off her angelic powers. Within seconds the cold assaulted her and chilled her bones, her teeth rattled yet she continued on until the river came up to her neck.

  She closed her eyes and trembled, her knees knocked and her body numbed until she sensed her mind detach from the world around her. The nuclear victims pained moans fell away from her ears and she settled herself into the cold current.

  The painful cold relieved her. She prayed to Jehovah and received another thick silence. She sank beneath the Rio Grande’s dark depths and floated. For a moment her responsibilities became a distant echo. Its burdens lifting from her mind. She let the world around her go just enough to find an answer to the jam their once sweet world wallowed in.

  She needed her team and the Guardians to remain strong. Two major battles, the second in France a surprise she did not expect, almost destroyed them. Michael warned her about Satan’s unhinged violence, so why his followers should be any less trouble.

  Each catastrophe worked its terrible fingers into her mind. She found the pressure difficult but not impossible to handle. Her family’s death reminded her to remain strong, to do it for their existence in Heaven. She wondered if Jehovah would allow her to fail. If she did fail He could start from scratch again.

  Wipe them all out, their histories, their dramas, dreams, and all His work from centuries past gone like a bad memory.

  But Jehovah would not succumb so easy to weak mortal and angelic thoughts. His hard stance meant those who lived under His authority would continue to suffer and yet be loved. Satan and his followers did not allow for fence riders. One either worshiped the dark lord or died. Jehovah at least offered a choice and forgave those who did not believe in Him.

  David Brown’s arrogant challenge stopped her cold. She wanted to kill him after he held the ones she protected as hostages to his evil. She suffered each time an innocent died. Each death made her fight harder and offered her a chance to exact a more brutal punishment for the wrong doers.

  Joan stilled her mind from its hectic back and forth. Victory. No other choice remained an option. Joan allowed herself no wiggle room and God’s deep silence resembled an admonishment she accepted.

  The cold bore down in her, deep and hard until her anger lifted enough to burn away the Rio Grande’s frigid bite. The archangel warmed her body and kicked her legs until she broke the river surface with the velvet blackness spread out above her head.

  The sounds returned to her ears, the pained groans, the shouts, and the voices trying to sooth the dying. She swam to the shore and walked onto the sandy beach, her body shimmering from the water.

  “No mercy,” she said into the darkness set around her. She faced east to where a feint red glow shown from the nuclear fires. “No mercy.”

  28

  General Isaiah Gold worked on the dig site until the skies blackened and the workers lit torches. Shovels and pickaxes continued to scrape and knock into the desert floor. Four hours after the dig started thousands came armed with more shovels and pickaxes to help drive deeper into the sandy earth. No one knew save for the general why they dug.

  Isaiah’s arms ached. He lifted the pickaxe and sent its sharp end into the earth beneath him. He found a rhythm and worked it. Both Palestinians and Jews sang and drove deeper and deeper into the sand. The ditch became so deep people slid wooden ladders into the dig site so the workers could climb in and out to get new pickaxes and shovels after their old ones broke.

  Isaiah stood in the center with eyes closed in deep focus. Lift and strike, lift and strike, he kept his rhythm steady along with the others around him. Thirst and hunger did not touch his mind and body. The work satisfied him and he followed the voice in his head. His pickaxe steel point struck a hard object, bright red sparks scattered in the darkness like fireflies.

  Isaiah stopped, the first time since he started the dig. “I need a torch.” A soldier came over with torch in hand and lit the ground beneath them.

  The general bent and brushed dirt away from the hard object at his feet until Hebrew letters appeared. “Here, a forge,” he said. He gazed up from the fifty-foot deep hole. “We will make the armor here. Keep digging, help me.”

  The crowd swarmed over the area. Shovels and pickaxes went to work at a more feverish pace. The crowd cleared the dirt and rocks away until an ancient building began to work up from its buried depths. An old smell emerged from the earth as the people continued to dig around the object.

  General Isaiah Gold dropped his pickaxe. He worked around the ancient stone chimney and walls with a paintbrush brought down to him. Soon thousands more joined in. Dust clouds boiled around the thousands who worked hard in the fifty-foot deep pit.

  Isaiah worked throughout the night until his vision blurred and his arms and legs grew heavy. The foundry took shape. A
wall appeared on one end, another chimney, a water pit, sword racks, thirty ancient anvils, old iron ingots, and several rooms, deep crucibles. He inhaled the peculiar smell, cinnamon and dried dates.

  He chipped away rocks with a hand chisel and whisked away dirt with a broad paintbrush. Sergeant Boka stood close by as he toiled. Sweat beaded his upper body despite the brisk cold. His fingers ached and stiffened. Yet he worked on.

  The general looked up at his sergeant. “The battle will be fought here,” he said.

  Sergeant Boka grabbed a nearby torch and lifted its light close to Isaiah’s face. His brown eyes drooping, his lips cracked. “You’ve been awake for seventy-two hours, sir. You need rest.”

  Isaiah grinned. The voice in his head continued on, steady, unbroken. “The battle..,” he said and slumped into unconsciousness.

  Isaiah awoke when Sergeant Boka shoved him a few times. He pulled himself from his dark slumber and sat up. His body aching, pain speared up his back and his neck throbbed and stiffened when he tried to turn it.

  He gazed around him and up at the gray skies. It must have been day, the pitch-blackness no longer surrounded him and the torches sat flameless in their holders. He lifted his hands before his eyes and stared at how scarred and bloody they became from the work he performed the night before.

  “Boka,” he said and swung his legs onto the cold ground. He looked about him and saw he sat on a cot near a stone doorway. He inhaled the air and stood, recalling the foundry, pain shot through his legs. “Sergeant Boka.”

  “I’m here, general,” she said and tossed him a clean towel.

  Isaiah caught the towel and wiped his face. The sergeant handed him a canteen filled with water. He drank deep and splashed some onto his face. “What happened last night?”

  “Last night,” she said. “You passed out.”