Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) (10 page)

Sporadic gunfire echoed from the east, the noise grew into explosions. Inhuman voices hit the air with a single shout. Enemy soldiers adorned in their retched armor charged from the buildings and attacked the Marines with horrendous brutality.
 

Wells’s protection platoons surrounded his Hummer and shot at the armored soldiers headed their way. His eyes beheld Marines speared, axed and hacked open by ancient weapons. Heads rolled across the ground, intestine spilled from eviscerated Marines. Gunfire and screams erupted around him in surreal madness. The general pulled out his pistol and fired at undead Romans who attacked. His bullets penetrated their bodies yet none fell to their deaths.
 

The enemy struck with a frightful ferocity. His sergeant grabbed him by the arm and shoved him into the Hummer’s rear seat.

Wrath appeared from nowhere. He stood in the street, his fleshless finger pointed at the Marines. His soldiers surged ahead with greater bloodlust. Bullets struck the nine-foot monster’s bone armor and glanced off. Bullets tore into the armor Wrath’s soldiers wore, and they continued to fight through the lead storm.
 

Horror registered on the Marines faces. Wrath’s heart hardened as his soldiers cut through the fighting Marines. Blood flowed into the streets, and one tank fired a round.

An explosion erupted near General Wells’s Hummer. The truck lifted from the ground and slammed into a wall. Superheated shrapnel hit the area like large buckshot. Dazed and bloodied, the general kicked open the back door and crawled from the damaged Hummer. He snatched an M4 carbine from a dead Marine’s hands and stood his ground.
 

His men did the same. They let loose more bullets against the enemy who fought with swords, battleaxes, and spears. Bodies filled the street, yet the Marines continued their fight despite the horrible losses.
 

The general reloaded his weapon as child-like screams rose from above him. The monsters once suspended in midair started to drop upon his Marines like misshapen wasps. Their mouths filled with razor sharp teeth worked in a rabid frenzy. The Screamers drove down into the Marines and tore away body parts. One Marine ran pass the general soaked in blood, his skin hung in wide swaths from his bones.
 

General Wells said a prayer as he continued to fire his weapon. He emptied his rifle, ejected the spent magazine, and slapped in a fresh one. His Marines fought to the death.
 

A Screamer swooped down next to him like a mosquito and sank bladed teeth into his left shoulder. Bones crunched, white pain ripped through his body. A howl escaped his mouth. He shot the monster’s bulbous eye. The Screamer’s eye burst open, splashing Wells’s face with yellow curd. The beast tore the flesh from the general’s shoulder.
 

Despite the enormous pain and the blood loss from the ripped shoulder, Wells stood his ground. Behind him, more Marines plunged into battle. The Roman soldiers turned on the tanks, tore open the hatches, and dove inside the armor. Screams echoed from within the metal behemoths.
 

Sudden pain seared Wells’s ankles. He collapsed to his knees, his face crashed into the debris-covered ground.

General Wells turned on his back. Two Screamers ate away at his feet. Their scorpion tails plunged into his body, pumping him with poison until all the flesh below his waist numbed. He screamed at the fresh horror his eyes fell upon. He expected pain to flash through his body, instead he witnessed black wrist-sized stingers armed with wicked points stab into his thighs.
 

Another Screamer hung over him and used its bony-clawed hands to press down on his chest.
 

General Wells gazed into the things huge lifeless eyes, foul breath puffed upon his face along with saliva. An appendage dropped from between its thin legs and worked its way up his left pant leg. His eyes glanced down as the snake like arm poked a hole in his pants at the knee. The general began to struggle and the Screamer’s pressure increased on his chest. The slender third arm, hot and wet, slid between his thighs. He grunted and squeezed his muscles together to deny access to no avail. The monster’s third leg slid home. He screamed from the pain and blacked out.

President Wallace responded to the beep from his two-way flat screen. He turned on the television and Colonel Frank Andrews face appeared. “Frank, where’s the general?”

“Dead, sir. So are the Marines.”

Wallace’s throat constricted, and for one precarious second, he thought he would pass out. His head swirled and the reality around him blurred. He set his chin, narrowed his eyes. “Pull back. Pull everybody back. I want all forces to head east and rally east of Colorado. Andrews, I want your Marines to be the last to go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wallace turned off the screen. He stood from the table and pressed a button on the wall behind him. A low motor hummed and the wall slid upwards to reveal a control room half the size of a football field. Three IMAX sized flat screens hung on a wall displaying computerized world maps. Beneath the screens sat a worker pool perched behind several hundred computers. “If my Marines can’t stop them, what next?”

“Nuke the bastards.” General Black stood and marched over to his boss and leaned over his shoulder. “Nuke them back to Hell, sir.”

“Gerald, we blew the hell out of them and they came back stronger. I need for someone to find out what they want and soon.” He turned back to the world screens, his fear apparent. “I need to know now before they wipe us out.”

18

Hell’s Cathedral stood silent against a gloom-filled backdrop. Los Angeles, covered in smoke and flames, relinquished its once beautiful glory to the fresh horror. The soldiers who clawed their way from Hell’s depths stood amid the ruins, their eyes focused on the pentagram.
 

The Screamers took their guard positions around the pentagram built upon Hell’s Cathedral highest tower and remained silent.

Horns blew from the cathedral’s battlements in a deep bellow. The soldiers stopped their accursed actions and gathered before Hell’s Cathedral in military formations. The Screamers turned to face the cathedral built from bones.
 

General Temeculus, a nine-foot giant dressed in a gargoyle head helmet and a Roman general’s rusted armor, stepped out on an expansive patio accompanied by two other Heralds of Hell. One bore a bull’s head, its horns drenched in wet blood. The herald owned a muscled nine-foot body covered in thick shiny fur. He wore a black chainmail tunic around his waist. In his right hand he held a massive battleax. Large Vampire bat wings sat on his back.
 

Next to Lord Goth stood a tall slender creature with dead-white skin and obsidian eyes like cold marbles. Large crow wings hung on her back. Long black hair spread over her shoulders in heavy braided tendrils. She wore corrosion-crusted armor with a sword the same reddish color.
 

General Temeculus surveyed the battered downtown Los Angeles. His pale face remained placid. His red eyes took in the city stretched out before him. He spotted the dead. Their souls, some, to his dismay, drifted to the sky above. Others sunk and struggled with futility into the blackened blood soaked ground. Those headed below drew a smile to his face.
 

General Temeculus lifted his huge head with an anvil-sized chin. He told Lucifer none here would stop him. Even the guardian angels fled his charge. He removed the black gargoyle helmet from his head.
 

Long white hair fell down his shoulders packed with hardened muscle. His soldiers roared below, their cheers swelled Temeculus’s dead heart with pride.
 

“You are here to do battle and achieve victory. Forsake not my soldiers, Hell’s finest fighters. This is not over. We will crush our enemies and suck the marrow from their bones.”
 

His voice boomed and rolled down to his soldiers who lifted their blood-splattered weapons into the air and shouted his name until Hell’s Cathedral walls shook.
 

“Soon this planet will be ours to own and command. First earth, next the golden gates of Heaven. We will prepare for our leader, our dear Lucifer who will take his rightful place on the throne and the universe shall be yours.”

The cheers redoubled. General Temeculus, now satisfied his soldiers remained thirsty for more blood, planned to sow legendary fear among the human worms he wanted to subjugate.
 

“Continue to raise hell my dear fighters. For the days here will be long, but the battles more than plentiful.” He drew his sword from its sheath, a once beautiful sword now encrusted with dried blood and rust. He turned away from his soldiers and reentered the massive door. The demon general vanished into Hell’s Cathedral dark confines with his heralds close behind him.
 

19

Joan cantered her head to the left. Whispers rose from beneath her, faint at first until she turned up the volume on her new angelic powers. Their fear-clogged voices reached her ears in one confused hum. Various conversations assaulted her at the same time. Military officers, soldiers, bodyguards, and even the president’s voice seeped from the earth.
 

Each person’s voice in the bunker reached her with crystal clarity. As if she sat in a room next to the speaker. She found herself able to turn their voices on and off at will.

Joan stood from her place on the ground. The crowd still surged near the White House black wrought iron fence. More soldiers showed up to the scene in military trucks. In the distance, black smoke billowed into the air. Sirens wailed as fire trucks raced into the city.
 

People started to faint from exhaustion at the White House gates. Onlookers pulled many to the shade.

Fear lifted into the air and shimmered like heat waves above the agitated people massed together. Joan found herself detached from the madness perched on unhinged violence. She distanced herself from the frail human emotions swarming around her and up into the warm air. Her goal, she reminded herself, remained bent on earth’s protection and Heaven’s safety. Her husband and son died due to her carless actions.
 

Joan assured herself they resided in Heaven. Where else would their fragile souls exist? Their safety became her ultimate goal.
 

A strong presence neared Joan. White light bloomed in her mind. An angel floated down from the skies and Joan tried and failed to read her thoughts. Like mist, however, the angel’s essence settled upon Joan’s senses enough for her to recognize the agitated spirit.

“Daisy Lane,” Joan said and turned around.

Daisy stopped a few feet from the short woman. Her Los Angeles police uniform soiled in blood and dirt stood out amongst the anxious crowd who ignored the out of place cop. Daisy riveted her green eyes on Joan. “I found you.”

Joan’s arms hung loose at her sides. “Hello to you too, Daisy.”

Daisy shook her head. “Joan, I am confused.” She took a careful step forward. “The enemy caught me off guard. No one warned me about this, this transformation.”

“Well, Daisy, my warning didn’t arrive as late as yours. But my wake up still came as a surprise. In time though, your memory will be sharp.”
 

Daisy regarded Joan with cool green eyes. “How many years passed since we last met? My God, almost eons.” She swept her eyes about her and returned her bitter gaze upon the angel. “So are you the boss?”

Joan gave Daisy a quick smile, brilliant white teeth flashed from her mouth. “The archangel Michael said I’m in charge of this.”

Daisy narrowed her eyes and nodded. “So what happened, Joan? Michael came down to rally the troops, get your blood boiling, and send you off to fight an enemy.”

“Not so simple, Daisy. We are about to fight the enemy of Heaven and earth.”

“Did he tell you why the enemy is who he is? Why Satan is Satan?”

Joan stared at Daisy in silence.

“This story goes deeper than what Michael told you. And once you find out the truth, you might not be so quick to grab a sword and fight.”

“God wants us to fight.”

“Ok, where’s our Lord? Is he here yet? Why are so many people still on earth? Hasn’t the Rapture started?”

“No Rapture, Daisy.”
 

Daisy Lane’s lips turned into a frown. “Well, what is this, Joan?”

“Do you remember Temeculus?”

“Lucifer’s confidante, I remember him.”

“Well, he is a general in Hell’s army. He’s led a force of a hundred thousand soldiers from Hell to take Heaven and earth.”

Daisy wrapped her arms about her waist and shivered. “They slaughtered thousands in Los Angeles, Joan?” Tears slid down her face. The people near the White House waded deeper into their own rabid fear. “Thousands.”
 

“Yea, Daisy. More are going to die if we don’t gather the other angels. We are five in all.”

Daisy wiped tears away from her eyes. More soldiers and police gathered at the gates to keep the crowd at bay. “So what is happening now?”

Joan took a deep breath. “General Temeculus is what’s happening, Daisy Lane. He arrived to earth to breach the other door leading into Hell. If Temeculus finds the Key, the Apocalypse starts now. Only one legion arrived from Hell and landed in Los Angeles. We need to make sure no other legions follow.”

Daisy took in the people, the thick black smoke in the morning sky. “Why are you standing here doing nothing?”

“I’m waiting to talk to President Wallace. He’s holding something we need, but he doesn’t know this yet. Not until one of Temeculus’s heralds come over here will he listen to me.”

“Why don’t you drop in on him? He’ll believe you after you pull a magic trick.”

Joan shrugged her shoulders. “A little, but he may also think I’m with the enemy. He needs to bear witness to what he’s about to encounter. Also I’m sitting here waiting for you.”

“Well I’m here,” Daisy said.

Joan turned toward the upset crowd. The soldiers started to push people from the gate. Within seconds, the crowd grew more agitated. A bottle flipped through the air and shattered against a soldier’s helmeted head. “Things are about to get ugly around here and the world.”