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

  Michael waved his hand. “We’re here now. I didn’t see Daisy as a threat. Although we sent Owen to watch her.”

  “And he died in battle with Kami. Now we know she’s a threat.” Joan pulled more bread and rolled it between her fingers into a ball. “Why did God make her into a Seraph?”

  Michael took a long draught from his cup. “Her powers are hollow, like watered wine. We needed to see the real Daisy.”

  “…a little power to reveal her true self. It worked. She wants to take over the team and help Lucifer take God’s throne.”

  “Let her hang herself, Joan.”

  “That’s playing it too close. Daisy was a mole all along, just waiting.”

  Michael laughed, his good nature easing into his face again. “That’s God’s plan.”

  Joan raised an eyebrow. “And what plan is that?”

  “It’s a secrete between me and Him, Joan.”

  Joan closed her eyes and sipped her wine. Her muscles no longer crowded in on her shoulders. Her head swam a little and her lips curved up into a slight smile. “So I just play along?”

  Michael placed a large hand on his daughter’s shoulder, her eyes fluttered open. “This is the plan.” He tilted forward, whispered in her ear, and leaned back.

  Joan nodded. So many plans, so many deaths and they all required blood in large amounts, along with sacrifices she hoped others could appreciate. “Then I have a request for you, Michael.”

  “Ask?”

  Joan brushed a stray black hair from his forehead and told her father what she wanted to happen after the battle. His face darkened for a second. Then they finished off the wine and bread.

  39

  Johnny Chang stared at the desolate city outside his passenger window, a chill swept through him. It took two hours to travel what on a normal Los Angeles day would have been a ten-minute ride. The ambush they faced shaved off five men from the team, and the several firefights they avoided sent them off the direct path and into round about streets and tight avenues.

  He sipped warm water from a canteen. The GPS sat attached to the dashboard useless. The sky remained a flat gray above them. His nerves heightened to a point where he sweated so much his skin dried.

  “How far,” he said to the man in the back seat who held the open map in his hand.

  “The next street, sir.”

  Johnny shifted in the leather seat and checked his handgun. He pressed a button on the grip, the loaded magazine dropped into his palm and he gazed at the hollow point rounds and then slid the magazine back into the weapon’s grip. He didn’t know how to fire a rifle well enough to carry the assault weapon.

  The big black guns intimidated him and for a long time he devised a plan to have the weapons banned and destroyed after the war. But for the moment he saw their importance to a point, the weapons advanced their cause.

  “We’re almost there, sir,” the man in the back said.

  Johnny leaned forward and slid the handgun in a holster strapped to his right hip. “Stop here,” he said and slapped the dashboard. The convoy rolled to a halt. Twenty-five men stepped from the armored black Ford SUVs and readied their weapons.

  Johnny slid from the truck’s passenger seat and out into the acrid air. The silent street stretched out before him. Faint voices echoed from a few squat single-family homes. Yet no one stepped outside to challenge them. He licked his lips and gazed at the address numbers painted black along the sidewalk curbs and the mailboxes.

  White homes lined the streets with overgrown lawns, appeared boring, safe. One stood out from the rest like Armand said. He wondered how the Satanist knew this fun fact.

  “The blue house,” Johnny said to his sergeant. “Kill them all.”

  Jose nodded and pulled a black motorcycle helmet over his head, the team members behind him did the same. He checked his weapon. Soon ten soldiers moved up the street in silence while the other fifteen secured a perimeter.

  Johnny followed them. He noticed their raised weapons and how they held them pointed out to their fronts. None said a word. They eased up the porch steps and stopped at the door. The sergeant paused and turned his head back to Johnny.

  Johnny’s heart pounded hard in his chest. His eyes swept over a flowerpot jammed with dead pink roses. A wooden swing hung on the porch by rusty chains. The steps swept clean let him know someone still cared for the home. He gave the sergeant a quick nod.

  The black helmeted man knocked on the door twice. The doorknob rattled and the front door cracked open. Without pause he lunged ahead, weapon up. His sudden sped surprised Johnny. The entire ten man team poured into the house, gunfire erupted followed by screams and heavy bodies knocked to the floor. Doors slammed from those who tried to hide.

  Johnny moved in behind the team. His heart speed kicked up so fast he thought it would burst in his chest. His ears rung from gunfire, the smoky cordite watered his eyes and made his nose run. An old woman lay on the floor with a bullet to her head, the screams and gunshots made his head swirl. He took slow breaths to control his adrenalin. The fast violence unnerved him.

  “No children,” he shouted. “No children.” He moved further inside, his boots slipping on the blood-covered floor. Twisted bodies in various death poses lay at his feet as he picked his way ahead.

  The ten-man team moved out into the backyard and stopped, their weapons trained on an older woman on her knees next to a man who knelt beside her.

  “Wait,” Johnny said and worked his way through the soldiers. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a picture. “You’re Daisy Lane’s husband? Carlton.”

  Carlton Lane took Auntie Bae’s tiny wrinkled hand. “I’m Carlton Lane.”

  Johnny cleared his throat and lifted the gun, his hand started shaking. He pointed the black weapon at Carlton. The man smiled at Johnny. “Don’t smile at me.”

  Aunt Bae looked at her nephew and then at Johnny. “Jesus loves you.”

  Johnny smirked. “Yea, but not enough to come down here and save you two idiots...” He squeezed the trigger, placing a bullet in both their foreheads. Their bodies slumped to the ground.

  The Satanist gazed at the weapon for a second and tucked it back into its holster. “Let’s go to Mexico.”

  Johnny waited for his men to leave the home. He gazed at the two side by side with their heads laid against the other. Besides the blood drenched over their faces they appeared asleep. His nose itched from the sharp gun smoke. The kill happened fast and he hoped the next one went quicker. He turned on his heels and headed out the home packed with dead bodies.

  The Satanist stepped from the house. “When will the helicopter get here, sergeant?”

  “Fifteen minutes, sir.”

  Johnny swept his eyes down the street. A few curtains shifted, heads peered from dirty windows and ducked back in again. They showed the appropriate fear to survive. But the people still needed the three sixes to live in their new world out in the open. If he could convince them to get the mark, the war would end.

  He shook his head in pity. “Where is our pickup landing?”

  “At a park down the street, sir.”

  “Then let’s get going,” Johnny said and climbed into the lead truck. He settled himself in the front passenger seat, strapped the seatbelt on as Jose slid behind the driver seat and got the truck on the move.

  It took fifteen minutes for the team to reach the park. Within five minutes a black Chinook helicopter, painted with the Devicorp signature logo on its side, landed in a clearing. The Chinook’s backdoor slid down and twenty armed men poured out and took up security positions.

  Johnny stepped from the truck as a pilot dressed in black with tiny metal wings pinned to his shoulders approached. “Captain,” he said.

  The man saluted. “Sir, sorry it took so long.”

  Johnny returned with a lazy salute. “Don’t worry, captain. How long will the flight take to Sonora?”

  “Four hours with one refuel in Mexico City.”

  Johnny gaze
d at the team as it loaded into the Chinook. One driver each stayed with the trucks and he ordered them to return to base. He wanted a good white wine. “Four hours it is.” He followed the team into the Chinook. He prayed to Satan for a fast flight and a few quick kills so he could help end the war.

  40

  Isaiah faced a mound created from steel pots, pans, and utensils. The metallic heap gleamed from nearby torchlights. Darkness spread above the crowd, yet remained at bay from bonfires built within the pit and above ground.

  He examined each mound, insuring pure steel or iron graced his eyes. Plastic handles, chemical coats, and paints would have to be removed before the pots became smelted into liquid for both weapons and armor.

  “General Gold,” Sergeant Boka said from across the pit.

  Isaiah turned his head to see Sergeant Boka wave at him. He walked from the steel mounds as inspectors continued sorting through the donated metal. His sister stood near a small hole in the ground surrounded by a few workers. He licked his lips eager to see what the group uncovered.

  “What is it, sergeant?” He neared the hole and peered into its liquid blackness.

  Sergeant Boka took a torch and tipped its fiery end towards the hole. “A chamber,” she said. “I figured you would want to go in first.”

  Isaiah grabbed the torch from his sister and knelt near the hole. He swept the torch over the opening and gazed into the four-foot drop. He slid his legs over the edge and jumped in and landed on soft earth. With his free hand he motioned Boka to follow him.

  Boka landed on her feet behind the general. “What is it?”

  Isaiah pressed a finger to his lips and lifted the torch. Its light crackled off the dusty walls. He bent low and moved down the narrow tunnel. His head scraped the ceiling at places. Boka followed close as they went deeper into the dark tunnel. The torchlight spilled its glow three feet to their front, lighting a path littered with odd shapes.

  Isaiah noticed the floor started to crunch underneath his feet. He paused and lowered the flames to see pottery shards, several thousand pieces in muted colors graced his eyes. The smell he experienced earlier returned to him, cinnamon and dried dates. The aroma drifted up the tight tunnel with its sweet odor. The floor slanted down in the distance as brother and sister continued on, deeper into the hole.

  Isaiah stopped once the tunnel appeared to end. Boka brushed by him, snatching the torch from his hand and moved into the small room. She swept the torch about and vanished for a few moments in the semi darkness. Soon the room came alive with light from flames.

  “It’s a prayer room, Isaiah,” she said. “The walls are covered in ancient Hebrew prayers.”

  Isaiah moved into the room splashed in red from the torches. Words written in Hebrew covered the walls. A small stone altar sat before him with ancient bowls filled with round objects.

  He neared the altar. The old bowls contained dried dates and what must have been cinnamon sprinkled onto their dead black husks. Words sat carved in the walls and ceiling. “Lord, grant us the gift to make weapons and armor. Bless the hands of the armorers who create such weapons of war until a time may come when we shall beat them into plowshares, your servant David,” he said.

  “The same prayer covers the four walls and the ceiling,” Boka said.

  Isaiah knelt before the altar and kissed its warm stone surface. He pulled his yarmulke from his side pants pocket and slid it onto his head and said the prayer again in Hebrew. A white glow appeared behind his closed eyelids. A warm peace washed over him and he wanted to melt himself into it. He knew the sign came as an answer to his purpose.

  With effort he set all fears he struggled with aside. God answered him. He rose to his feet, turned to Boka and hugged her tight.

  “I am not insane little, sister.”

  “I never said you were insane, Isaiah.”

  “This was King David’s forge,” he said and held her shoulders.

  Isaiah smiled and snatched a torch from the wall. He hurried back up the tunnel and climbed out the hole with Boka behind him. He crossed the field with haste, approaching the first forge.

  General Isaiah Gold stood next to the ancient forge carved from stone. The metal workers stood next to their forges as volunteers brought down more wood and coal to fuel the fires. The high heat baked off his face making him sweat. Thirty other forges warmed the pit. A steady red glow from the fires shown against the ancient mud walls and the bodies engaged in work.

  Isaiah’s eyes reflected amber against the firelight. He dumped the torch into the first forge. The fire erupted underneath the large crucible in bluish-orange flames, his skin warmed and he sensed a powerful presence near him.

  The general walked the line as the forges roared to life with fire. Jubilant shouts from the workers erupted like fans at a soccer game. Two soldiers worked each large bellow, stoking the fires into a strong enough heat to melt the pots and pans into a fiery liquid soup. Another group stood near the ancient molds to form the smelted metal into swords and armor.

  His mind steadied from what occurred in the underground prayer room moments ago. The voice no longer whispered in his mind to urge him on. He hiked back to the first forge, lifted a huge cooking pot and slid it into the crucible. He gazed into the crucible as the pot dissolve from the heat. Sweat glistened his face, his lips pulled back into a satisfied smile.

  God told him the battle would end here. He didn’t understand God’s plan at first and realized he didn’t have to understand. God told him what to do. He needed to follow the Lord’s will without all the questioning.

  Isaiah straightened. “Are you ready,” his voice boomed across the great pit.

  The several thousand voices fell into a hush. He moved down the line again, his eyes taking in each forge and each team ready to dump the molten metal into molds. The anvil workers waited with hammers in hand.

  The general continued along the line, his eyes holding their faces. Each step he took empowered him. Isaiah wanted this same power to extend to those who prepared to make the weapons needed to fight the battle. The thought drove into him.

  “Victory,” Isaiah said.

  Isaiah reached the last team and turned around. Over a thousand pairs of eyes rested upon him. “Add the pots and pour the molds, make the weapons and armor.”

  Cheers hit the air. The teams rushed to fill the crucibles with steel. Within minutes the pots and pans melted down into a heated liquid. The workers tipped the scalding crucibles filled with molten steel into the molds. Steam hissed and rose along with the heat and excitement.

  Isaiah’s heart kicked up in his chest, adrenalin pumped through his veins. He walked back down the line like a football coach, studying each team and how the liquid metal oozed into the molds and glowed red against the worker’s faces.

  One team poured the melted steel into the mold, and another lifted the heated metal from the mold and laid it onto the anvil. Two workers with hammers pounded the metal, sparks splattered like tiny red jewels. The workers hammered the steel into swords. Metal rung into the air in a constant rhythm until the beats merged together and synchronized. The metal workers found a cadence and became faster.

  Others came in and placed the created swords on tables where they constructed handles made from wood. Another team created leather sheaths made from jackets, purses, and shoes. Above the great pit volunteers arrived with portable kitchens. Cooks barbecued lamb and baked bread for the thousands who toiled within the intense pit.

  General Isaiah Gold dove into the work around him. He poured molten steel, hammered the heated metal against the anvils and inspected the work. He knew what to do and did not hesitate to accomplish his God assigned task. He knew lives depended on him.

  41

  David Brown woke to find himself stretched out on a cot. A stench cloyed his nostrils. The smell came at him warm and heavy like rotten chicken. He pushed himself up on his elbows and swept his eyes around the room he found himself in.

  David swung his feet on
to the floor and stood, his legs wobbling and a bitter taste lodged in his throat. Then he recalled the faces, the shootings and the doleful moans. He placed his fingers on his forehead and pressed them against the seared triple sixes.

  He told Armand he would take the underground fortress and wondered if the soldiers succeeded in their task. A slow burn grew in his stomach and he looked up at a glass wall to his front. He approached the window. Someone brought him up to Raymond Wallace’s old command office. His answers came once he reached the glass to gaze down into the control pit.

  People dressed in black jumpsuits moved about at a frantic pace. Someone got the world screen up, electronic distortion wiggled across the screen yet it worked. The vents overhead hummed, however the death smell remained. He could ignore the stench for a moment longer.

  David placed his forehead against the cold glass and stared into the control center below. The mass kills a few hours past still unnerved him along with the nuclear blast in Houston. He tried not to think about how many he killed. The people trapped in the kitchen would have survived their ordeal if he allowed.

  A groan escaped his lips. The visions from the kitchen twisted his stomach. “What am I doing,” he said to the glass.

  He straightened his stance like a soldier, gazed at his hands expecting to see them smeared with blood. His fingers trembled like weeds blown by a chilled wind. He sensed souls gather behind him in great numbers.

  David spun around. The empty office greeted his eyes. The desk and swivel chair appeared too empty as if someone got up from them seconds ago. Raymond’s picture on the wall with steady hazel eyes locked on him, the smile on his face looked vengeful. David trembled from a cold blast down his body.

  “No,” David said at the picture and bolted forward. He reached up and snatched the picture frame from the wall and slammed it to the floor. With his right foot he stomped the picture, crushing the glass cover into crumbs beneath his sneakered feet. He leaned over and shook the picture from the glass fragments and tore the photo into tiny pieces.