Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) Page 9

  Joan stepped from the people massed together. Tiny, plain, and almost hesitant she faced the goliath. Goth’s cockiness bothered her, even when he lived in Heaven. The security team, too afraid to move against him, stood frozen in terror. “Lord Goth.”

  Goth turned around. “Joan? Joan, is that you?”

  “Who else, Goth. Who else?” Joan lifted her hand. She thought about her sword and the perfect blade appeared in her grasp with a custom fit for her small right hand. The blade shimmered like a river. Burnt-orange sunlight struck its honed edge. She decided to stay dressed in her jeans and a simple white blouse.

  She wanted to test her skills. “Tell your boss to pack up and go home, Goth.”

  “Retreat is the last thing on anyone’s mind.” He approached Joan, glared at her for a moment and swung the axe at her head. The worn metal rivets stitched to his horrid outfit creaked.

  Joan ducked, surprised at her own reflexes. Warm blood from the previous victims dappled her face from the iron weapon’s edge. She blocked Goth’s second strike. The blow thrummed down her arms, her knees buckled. She stepped back and grasped her sword with both hands.

  Her sparring match with the archangel loosened the rusty screws within her memory. She steadied herself. Goth lifted his battleax and attacked her again.

  Lord Goth hacked and lunged. He grunted at each delivered blow. Joan parried, spun and slipped Goth’s attacks. She found an opened space, leaped up, and kicked Goth in his ribs. He stumbled back, eyes filled with black rage. The soldiers, once eager to meet Goth in battle, retreated to the White House steps.

  Joan swung at Goth’s head and missed. He struck out with his battleax. She blocked his blow intended for her head. She moved with grace and fierceness. Her every attack and parry functioned like artwork.

  Her sword strokes met his blows as if she read his mind. She leaped forward, spun, and kicked to catch the huge demon in his chest.

  Goth stumbled back and caught his balance. He hefted his battleax overhead with both hands. The two circled each other. He feigned a few moves and struck with explosive speed. Their weapons clashed, sparks flew. Goth broke away and attacked again. He brought his battleax down and split the brown skin on Joan’s left arm.

  Joan shouted in pain, a noise she cared little for. The cut burned like acid thrown against her skin. Blood seeped from the wound. She gritted her teeth and fought back the dizziness in her head. Goth smiled and swept his battleax back like a pendulum.

  She forced herself to remain steady. Her arms shook as sweat sprinkled her forehead. Goth narrowed his eyes and lunged to deliver his final blow.

  Joan slipped to Goth’s right side, the battleax heavy edge plowed into the earth with a thud. She drove her sword up into his throat before he started to rise. Her face twisted in a grimace, her white teeth shown bright as Lord Goth’s thick blood dripped over her hands. His red eyes drew down to hers. For a second they filled with shock and fear before pure hatred flooded them. “Tell your master to pack his things and go.”

  “Never.”

  Pink blood frothed and bubbled in his maw as he changed from human to bovine. His weakened hands fumbled and his battleax struck the ground. He continued to transform before her until his true hideousness appeared. Goth jerked his head and impaled a horn into Joan’s tiny shoulder.

  Joan cried out from the sharp pain and withdrew her bloodstained sword from Goth’s throat. She placed some distance between her and the herald. Lord Goth’s ten-foot bat wings outstretched from his broad back. He took flight. Dust swirled up in his wake.

  Joan’s sword vanished from her hand. Her eyes traced the path Goth took into the air as he howled in anger and pain. The wound on her shoulder began to heal. The intense pain traveled through her shoulder and almost paralyzed her. Joan surmised any cut from their weapons or bodies would be poisonous.

  Three Apache gunships roared above her head, their blades kicking up dust. Soldiers approached with their useless weapons aimed at her. She would not harm them, even if they started to shoot. Fear filled them all, even more so after her fight with Lord Goth.

  “Place your hands behind your head and get down.” A soldier ordered the angel.

  Joan took a breath to steady her nerves. “Calm yourselves, I mean you no harm. I am Joan, angel from Heaven. Lower your weapons and let me speak to your president. For only I can tell him why Hell came to earth.”

  “I said get down or we will shoot you.”

  Joan faced the soldier who held the rifle. “Shoot.”

  She stepped toward him and he fired a round. The bullet went clean through her chest. “Now, let me chat with your president. Do not be afraid of me. Please,” she said as the bloodless bullet hole closed. The soldiers lowered their weapons.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Joan dropped through the ground beneath her feet like a vapor. She headed to the hole where President Wallace scurried to hide. His men who fought for their lives above ground thought their brave leader remained in the Oval Office to face his fate.

  President Raymond Wallace frowned as the battle unfolded on several close circuit screens built into the control center walls. He stood with a coffee cup in one shaky hand. Reports about the fight and about the tiny woman who defeated the murderous monster filtered down to him. His Secret Service protection team, arrayed in black jumpsuits, guarded the entrance into the impenetrable fortress.

  Fred Morrison, the presidential scientific advisor, approached Wallace. “Sir, what happened on the White House lawn can be explained.”

  “How Morrison? Tell me how you explain experienced soldiers going down like untrained amateurs. Now get away from me.”

  Morrison slinked from the red-faced man. Patricia Jones eyed the scientific advisor with enmity. “Sir, we need to talk to them. Reason with them.”

  “No one can reason with the likes of Hell.” A woman’s voice rose in the room.

  The guard closest to the voice spun to face a short woman positioned behind him. He raised his weapon, but her hands moved fast. She snatched the rifle from his grip, broke the black weapon in two pieces over her knee and tossed the useless plastic and steel to the floor.

  Joan touched the soldier’s arm. “Calm yourselves. Calm your men, President Wallace.”

  President Wallace lifted his hands and his protection team lowered their rifles. “How did you get in here? The walls are thirty feet thick, made of titanium. We are forty stories beneath the earth. How did you get in here?”

  Joan eased forward. “I’m Joan of Heaven, angel and helper to the archangel Michael, who guards the gates of Heaven, who protects all in Heaven and upon the earth.”

  She passed several well-dressed people and faced the president. “President Wallace, Heaven needs your help. Without your assistance, something huge and horrible will start. And the entire world will be lost.”

  Raymond Judd Wallace, President of the United States, glanced at his presidential advisor. Patricia Jones nodded. He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath and exhaled through his lips. He opened his eyes and the petite angel remained where she stood. He struggled to accept her presence or the situation he faced. Trust would not come easy to someone who snuck through solid metal and defeated a nine-foot tall monster.

  21

  President Raymond Wallace sat in a room with Joan and his advisors. The angel laid out to them what happened in Los Angeles and the reason why Heaven needed their help. He ran a hand over his sweat-slicked face despite the air conditioner turned up high.

  “Why us? Why not Britain, Africa or anywhere else in the world? Why here, Joan?” Wallace gazed at her with red glassy eyes. “Everything you’re telling me is supported by the madness I saw on the lawn an hour ago. The Marines being pushed back, the Air Force having to stand down. I’m still having a hard time believing this. I don’t understand. Why us?”

  “I can’t tell you, but they are here searching for the Key, who lives in Mexico City. They are willing to do everything they can t
o find her and open the back gate located near Denver, Colorado.”

  Wallace leaned back in his seat. “Denver. The battle will happen in Denver. I don’t remember Denver being in the Bible.”

  Joan shook her head. “Denver is not in the Bible and this is not the Second Coming, Mr. President. This is the beginning of a war to prevent the end from happening.”

  “Patricia, should we send troops to Mexico City and find her, this Key?”

  Joan reached out and touched the president’s hand. “No, sir. No matter how many armies you send down there, they will wipe them out.”

  Wallace nodded. “What do we do?”

  Joan turned to the presidential advisor. “Patricia Jones,” she said. “You hold a secret capable of helping the world end this conflict. In fact, no president is privy to this information since the program started in the sixties.”

  President Wallace shifted in his seat. “What is she talking about, Jones?”

  Patricia Jones turned to General Black. “Should I tell him, or you?”

  General Black folded his thick fingers. “I’ll tell him. Sir, President Kennedy created a program during the sixties. It’s called the Armageddon Project.”

  “The what?”

  Jones said, “Sir, Kennedy thought up a special unit, and they laughed at the idea. Nevertheless, he created two ultra-secret divisions, and we still maintain the units. The units are trained to handle this event.”

  President Wallace’s face reddened. “My troops died out there and you failed to prevent this atrocity.” He bolted from his seat and smashed a fist upon the tabletop.

  Joan spoke up. “It’s not her fault, sir. The enemy attacked us by surprise.”

  “We expected the Rapture,” Patricia said. “Nothing happened. No one floated into the air or vanished. We did not hear of any reports of the Rapture, so we could not do anything but sit and wait. We watched the air battle fail, the land battle also. Still. We couldn’t move.”

  “You wanted to negotiate with them, Patricia,” Raymond said.

  “To find out what they wanted, sir.”

  Joan leaned forward to draw Patricia Jones wet eyes to her. “We need them now, Patricia. We need them more than you can comprehend.”

  President Wallace relaxed his fist and eyed Joan. “How do I know you’re not one of them?” His eyes narrowed. “You might be like that thing you fought. A sham to get in here and destroy us all.”

  Joan stood from the table. “You know what? Someone in this little hideout needs to die before you listen to me. Be aware, Mr. President. Goth came for you,” she said. “I’ll go. Next time one of General Temeculus’s heralds come knocking. I’m going to let them knock you into the next world. They did not come to earth for vacation. They came here to destroy the world.”

  Patricia outstretched a hand. “Wait, Joan. Wait.” She turned to the president. “Sir, we need to give this a chance. We have lost far too many civilians and troops. Our cities are in chaos, and we might have to enforce martial law in D.C. soon. We must give her a chance.”

  “Give me an hour to think about this Heaven and Hell stuff.”

  Joan nodded and stormed from the office and into the command room packed with busy soldiers. She sensed General Black approach from behind. “They are bent on releasing the dragon, general. Even the possibility of such an act is beyond comprehension.”

  General Black nodded. They faced the three IMAX screens hung on the command center walls. Each screen depicted a different scene in the country. People prayed in one scene, riots in another. People jammed the weakened fence along the Mexican border. The sight brought a thin smile to his face. “Do you think we’ll win?”

  Joan faced the tall man who stood next to her. “I’m not sure. Too many unknowns are in play. A Hell trained general, five angels and no army to stop the enemy. The odds are not in our favor, General Black.”

  Black leaned against the brass rail built across the conference area. Below them sat the command center. He loosened his tie. “I figured. Do you think some of us will side with them?”

  “Of course. A good many will. A good many have.”

  “What will he offer the traitors?”

  Joan admired General Black’s coolness. “Oh, he will offer them the usual, power, money, eternal life as long as they serve Lucifer.”

  “That’s disconcerting, ma’am.”

  “Call me Joan, general. I’m a soldier angel.”

  “Okay, Joan.” He pursed his lips. “You’re an angel of war. Like soldiers, we have some that fight and others in support.”

  “Yes, you can say I’m the Special Forces of the bunch, me and the other four.”

  A throat cleared over an intercom speaker. Joan stared up at an upper office window where the president motioned for her to come up. “Talk to you later, General Black.”

  “You can bet we will.”

  Joan headed towards the elevator guarded by two soldiers dressed in black. She took the elevator to President Wallace’s private upper office and stepped out on thick carpet.

  President Wallace stood at the office window. Fat pouches hung underneath his small hazel eyes. His thin lips pulled down at the ends to form a frown creased with fine lines.

  “Can you foresee the future, Joan?”

  “Only what God shows me. Otherwise I’m like you in some aspects.”

  President Wallace folded his arms. “Is my guardian angel here?”

  “Yes she is.”

  Wallace lifted an eyebrow. “She?”

  “She is I.”

  “My God. I never thought this day would come. The last of days.” He shook his head.

  Joan stood next to the president. “These are not the last days, Raymond. This is war.”

  “The last days are a war.”

  “Consider this a skirmish, one we must stop before we loose too much control.”

  Wallace sat on his desk. His eyes shifted from one IMAX screen to another as madness unfolded over the world. “I think this is beyond our control, Joan. Why did God let this happen?”

  “He didn’t. They did this on their own and are here with half their powers, Mr. President. God wants this over as much as you do. Even more so, but He cannot get involved. The Rapture will not happen.”

  “So, as you told us earlier. Five angels are going to save us.”

  “No. We are going to help you save yourselves.”

  “None of you will die?”

  “If we lose our heads we are done until the Second Coming. I heal. Lord Goth struck me with his horn and battleax. I heal. I bleed, and I suffer pain. Even so, I must protect my head from being detached from my body. Like the enemy, they must not lose their heads either.”

  Wallace lifted a red folder from the desk and handed the thick item to Joan. “Read this, Joan. My scientific advisor committed suicide in the bathroom fifteen minutes ago. Shot to the head”

  Joan opened the folder. “I figured much.”

  “More people are going to start shooting themselves and jumping out of windows. Guilty conscious you think?”

  “I think so, Raymond.” Joan read the papers tucked inside the red folder. Two divisions, all Special Forces soldiers who stood ready to fight in the Second Coming.

  “Do they meet your specifications, Joan?”

  “We need changes. Big ones. No rifles. The troops will be fighting with swords, spears, arrows and shields. I need cavalry also. I need ten thousand men and woman. All volunteers whose faith resides in God. I decide if they are worthy.”

  “Ok. But tell me. Why did you wait so late to save those people?”

  “You’re stubborn, Raymond. You would not have believed me if I just showed up at your doorstep proclaiming to be an angel. I still don’t think you trust me.”

  “Patricia believes I should trust you.”

  “Patricia has a good heart. Her place is set.”

  “What about mine?”

  “Well, what about yours?” She closed and placed the folder on
the desk. “How fast can you assemble these soldiers?”

  “Give me two days,” he said.

  “Okay.” Her eyes scanned the screens along the walls. Her heart ached for the people who ran in fear. If they would stop for a moment and gather their senses, they would survive.

  To her left, President Raymond Wallace fell to his knees in a corner and prayed. Joan sensed God’s silent urge for her to hurry.

  22

  Lord Goth returned to Hell’s Cathedral bathed in his own blood. Fear came off his gruesome body in sour waves as he trudged into General Temeculus’s ghoulish chambers. An arched ceiling four stories high towered above him. Human bones, some in parts, and others in whole decorated the walls. Torchlights splashed the cathedral innards in blood red and black.

  Goth changed his form to human and approached the general. Temeculus faced a black stone table. A large map made from human skin covered its top. Other demons surrounded the table in various shapes and sizes. Goth eased himself to one knee and bowed his head.

  General Temeculus stopped his work. “So what did he say?”

  Lord Goth, still on one knee, lifted his head. His grip tightened on his battleax ironwood staff to steady his nerves. “I fought someone, general.”

  General Temeculus’s lips twitched. The other demons backed away from the table. “Fought someone, of course you did. I figured they would fight you.”

  Lord Goth licked his lips. “No, general. I fought Joan the angel.”

  Harsh laughter, ripe with pain and anger rose from behind Temeculus. He turned back to the table and the head on the stretched skin. The head turned halfway around. “You find something funny, General Wells?”

  “I hope they slaughter you all,” the general said. His voice cracked and wavered to get the words out.

  General Temeculus smiled and turned his gaze back to Lord Goth. “Rise, Goth.” The demon rose to his feet. “Joan, Michael’s pupil is she not?”