A flurry of shadows meets them from the sides, and men run from behind me lying in wait.
Colonel Becks and nine other soldiers ambush the medieval knights, taking them down with bayonets, knives, rifle butts, and choking the last two to death with sections of parachute cord. For most of the knights, it’s a two on one fight, with some soldiers holding the knights’ mouths closed while they are ruthlessly killed.
It’s a bloody, fast take down without firing a shot, and the torch rolls to the ground at my feet, illuminating the cell with its eerie firelight.
I don’t even realize the flame is burning my exposed knee before Becks kicks it away from me and helps me to my feet. He points to the squad’s medic. “Check her knee.”
The medic looks up. “Her skin isn’t burnt, her jeans are though. Nothing.”
I look down. Not even the cut from the bullet I got in the car. Why didn’t that hurt? Is this what the king meant when he said I could face the burning man? I have no idea. I shake my head and look around.
Becks and his two team leaders are by the cell’s door, peering into the hall. The rest of the seven men are around me, carrying M-16 rifles, a pair of machine guns, and two under-rifle grenade launchers. They move the bodies of the five knights inside the room, and cover the door.
I walk over to the colonel, and he looks back at me with a smile. “You weren’t kidding about that teleportation thing, Blackbird. That must come in pretty handy.”
“It’s like my checkbook.” I lean around him and look in the hallway. “When I can control it, it’s a good thing. Did you have to kill them?”
“We don’t carry silencers, and they probably don’t know what these are,” he says, snapping a bullet into his short rifle’s chamber, “so it was the the easy way or the hard way. We chose for them, unfortunately.”
One of the soldiers behind us remarks, “Easy for us, hard for them.”
I look away from the death, and I’m vaguely aware of a presence floating away from each one of them. I turn, and walk towards a blackened ghost floating away from one of the knight’s bodies. The medic blinks, looking at me, and then looking around like he can’t see what I see.
I step towards the black ghostly form, reach out, and touch the darkened smoke. It’s cold, full of hatred and vile, wicked thoughts. The decision comes to me without me thinking about it.
Up or down?
I can’t control it. I walk from ghost to ghost, reaching out and thinking, down. Down, down, down. They flit away, one by one to my touch, each one’s thoughts more hateful and vile than that of the others. I touch them out of revulsion more than thought, like swatting a fly away, and then swatting another. I can’t think about it, I just do.
“Secure the bodies,” Becks says, ordering his men in a whisper, “cover them with tarps. Team lead two, take point. Jess? Jessica?”
I’m shaking so badly he has to hold me. He turns me around, and slaps my cheek softly. Hey, Blackbird, snap out of it. What is wrong?”
“Evil.” I blink. “All of them, evil and wicked to the core.” I look up into his eyes, my hand numb, tears streaming down my face. “I think I just sent them all to Hell.”
“That’s our job.” He wipes the tears from my eyes. “I need you here, now, without you, nobody is getting home.” He pauses as something clicks in his head. “You tell us where to go, and we’ll find Azrael together. Understand?”
I nod, and he helps me to the door. I don’t look back.
We creep into the hall, the soldiers covering our backs crouch walking backwards, rifles at the ready and pointing into darkness. The colonel and his sergeant walk point with their knives and pistols drawn, ready to ambush anyone in front of us silently. I’m in the middle of them all, taking cover behind men in heavy armored vests like some sort of VIP.
If only they knew what I have been through.
What I am going through.
Where we are going.
CHAPTER XXV:
We Move Like Death Itself
We approach a door at the end of the hall, and Becks and his sergeant slip inside. A short whistle, and the soldiers and I move in. A dead jailer lies to the side, and Becks cleans his knife while handing the sergeant a keyring. Two men creep up to a circular stairwell and aim up it, pointing their rifles high.
I’m aware of another ghost, calling to me, begging me for deliverance. No one else seems to notice. I’m afraid to touch it, so I just stare and back away. It hums and howls in some imperceptible sound, its wails growing more plaintive as I back away.
The sound of a whip cracks through the stairwell, and a man screams in agony. I feel the pain of his haunting wail in my teeth it hurts so bad. Everyone in the squad looks at the stairs.
“He’s up there.” I say.
Becks nods, and moves his men towards the stairs, keeping with me as we ascend. Every step is an agony in silence, every man is cursing any noise they make. We move as a group of silent killers, each of us on edge, extreme violence ready to erupt in a heartbeat.
Becks keeps a hand on my shoulder, instructing me where to move inside the group. His sergeant, Harris, crouch-walks ahead of me, and I can count about six rifles pointing past me, safeties off, a storm of death ready to fly on the pull of a trigger.
We enter an upstairs hall built entirely out of gray stone, with a high arched ceiling. The hall is lit by large candles sitting on eons of dripping wax. The hallway goes off in both directions, one down to a set of doors, and the other way to a corner about ten yards away.
Another crack of the whip and a blood curdling howl direct our attention towards the pair of doors. Becks points towards them and the group nods.
We see them and they see us. A group of three men in plate armor turn the corner, one carrying a tray of food. The tray drops and clatters, the men pull their swords, and two of our soldiers open up on them with their automatic rifles.
The bullets pass through the plate armor like tin cans on a fence. My ears explode from the noise, they hurt from the reverberation of the sound around us as a third soldier opens up into them, bullet after bullet tearing through the men. Blood explodes out the back of the knights as they jerk and fall in lifeless piles of shattered bone and torn flesh.
“Go time!” Becks shouts, and we’re running towards the doors. “Sergeant, lead the men to the door! Weapons free!”
Behind me, the dead men’s ghosts call to me, the evil twisting forms begging to be released from the bonds of this world, and their cries grow desperate to not let them wander forever in the throes of limbo. Becks pushes me along as I stare back at them, the three ghosts begging release and freedom from this earthly bondage.
Even Hell would be better one of them says to me.
Becks keeps a hand on my shoulder, and we’re running away from them as a group, the men around me on alert, rifles readied, and I can feel the dead men’s cries grow more urgent.
Release us.
Please send us to Hell.
Don’t leave us.
I reach back, open my hand, and comply. Gone, gone, and gone.
In their wake is a peaceful eddy, almost serene and thankful.
The fire team ahead of us opens the doors, and two men enter the room beyond like trained professionals, closely followed by two others.
It’s a mess hall, and about thirty knights are eating, their heads turned in the direction of the racket. Several are standing, and obviously they never have had heard the deadly sound of a gun before.
They learn soon enough.
The four entering soldiers blast the men with their rifles, rapid automatic fire sending bullets sailing through the flesh of knights at close range. The star-like flashes on the rifle’s muzzles erupt around us, brass casings flying off into the air, the chaotic symphony of slaughter sending knights to the ground so fast it’s impossible to see it all happen.
Only I’m aware of every one of them.
Knights sitting for dinner are gunned down, others pulling swords fall
with massive holes blown in their chests, a knight falls over with half a head, blood sprays the walls, arms are detached from bodies, and death visits each and every one of these men trying to fight back against a machine of soldiers trained to kill, and kill well.
We are halfway across the room, the lead soldiers are reloading rifles while the ones behind them take up the lead, and the volley of fire continues unabated. We are stepping over bodies and pools of blood as we slice our way into the room like a force of nature, violent and uncaring, each soldier mechanical in precision, reactions to turn, point weapons, and unleash hell clicking and snapping into place like a Swiss watch.
A crossbow bolt wounds one of our men, and the medic pulls the wounded man to the center of the group, the medic’s rifle cutting the crossbowman to pieces in a half-second.
We’re across the room, death in our wake, and I can feel the cries of the dead and dying. With every life taken, it’s another for me to send, a cutting of the cord, a life judged in the blink of an eye, souls dying or wishing they were, slowly bleeding out and slipping away.
It’s overwhelming, there’s so many dead, there are so many screams, it’s mass murder and I’m in the center of it, looking and feeling but not being able to stop it. In fact, I brought all of this upon them.
What have I done?
More screams, more judgments, and more souls begging for release. Even those left alive are in so much pain they were wishing they were dead, and in their half-dazed state they are reaching to me, the Angel of Death, to cut the cord and set them free from the pain.
Set us free from the pain.
Judge me next. Please.
I have lived a life of wickedness and sin, send me to the peace of Hell. I am ready to be judged.
Let me die.
Make my pain stop, I beg of you.
Please let me die.
What have I done?
Becks opens the doors on the other side of the room, and we are looking outside at a gray and rainy day. It’s a castle courtyard, wet with rain with high towers surrounding the walls. A black man is hung on a cross, nude except for a small loincloth. His back facing a group of men, one a torturer with a whip.
A hundred lashes from the whip cross his back.
Two giant scars where his wings used to be seep blood down his shoulder blades.
Azrael.
A group of knights standing around the torture are drawing their swords, running at us, screaming at the top of their lungs in battle cries, and preparing for war.
They don’t get war, they get Hell.
Men with longbows fire at us from the wall, and arrows sail down at our squad. Our group takes positions on the stairs leading into the courtyard, arrows flying around us with deadly accuracy, shafts sticking out of soldier’s backpacks, one hitting one of our men in the face but the soldier keeps firing, and our squad moves into position to fire back.
Becks and the other soldiers open up, taking shots off at men on the walls with their rifles, and the squad’s two machine-gunners open up on the charging advance of knights.
It is like watching wheat being cut with a reaper.
The machine-gunners lay a stream of bullets into the advancing horde, knights fall over each other, blood sprays into the air, and bodies shatter, skulls burst open, and limbs fly. The two men with grenade launchers let tiny packages of exploding death sail through the air, the explosions shattering stone, blowing archers off walls, and sending fireballs sailing up into the rainy sky.
Azrael screams.
There are so many souls crying I can’t count them all. I must join them. I must become one with them.
This is where I belong, in death.
I pick up the sword of a fallen knight, run through the firing squad, put my foot on the railing of the stairwell, and jump off into the hailstorm of death, my sword raised high.
I’m flying, my wings spread wide, a black raven of death sailing above her brood of violence and hatred.
I land in the center of a group of knights, both alive and dying, landing with such force that the bodies of the dead and alive fly away from me, arcing through the air and leaving trails of blood in their wake. Only the strong remain around me, and the knights charge in.
I scream like the blood itself, the unholy strength filling my veins, the power coursing through my muscles like some unearthly force, and I swing this ten-pound sword like it was made of paper.
Everywhere the sword goes, it cuts. Everything it intersects, it slices in half like one of my best kitchen knives. It shocks me to see a man’s arms cut off, the second man’s insides spilling out, and the third man lose his jaw in my one long-bloody, instant sword blow - but it doesn’t shock me.
It pleases me.
Why have middlemen do the killing when I can kill and judge them right here?
I step into the next attacker like a possessed woman, twirling my sword with the practice of a thousand years of war, blocking one blow, and slicing another knight in two.
His soul? Guilty, straight to Hell.
The man I blocked retreats a step, raises his sword, and I shove my blade straight into his gut. I twist the weapon, see his eyes go wide with pain, and I judge him, guilty, to Hell with you, and his flesh shell drops to the ground in a lifeless husk.
An explosion from one of the grenades blows apart one of the castle’s towers as I turn towards the next group of knights between me and Azrael. I step through puddles of blood and rainwater as I advance towards them, wearing the pall of uncaring death on my face like a mask.
A knight runs at me, swinging his sword at my face. I raise my sword, knocking aside his weapon with so much power he loses balance and tumbles to the side of me. Your soul is spared for the next few seconds.
The next man comes at me with a shield. I stab straight through the shield into his face, judge him, to Hell with you, and he falls to the ground.
I remove my weapon and slash at another charging man, breaking his sword in half with mine, my blade going a foot down into the knight’s shoulder, and blood flying everywhere. I judge him quickly as I remove my sword from his body, sending him to Hell, and stepping over him.
It’s like a thousand years of death and judgment all catching up to me in one purifying moment. I narrow my eyes and judge the souls of a dozen men around me in one fell swoop, and I feel their essences fade away.
Go to Hell, my lovely screaming souls, your hateful lives judged in this procession of death.
The ends of your lives am I.
A captain of the knights I recognize from the group that captured me stands on the steps of the torture platform where Azrael is tied. The whip armed torturer stands behind him.
The captain charges me, and he brings his weapon dangerously close to my flesh. My unholy strength sends him spinning away, but the gray-bearded knight recovers and faces me again. He screams something in Latin and charges again, his blow forcing me back.
I hiss like an unholy deviless, and press into him, swinging my sword like a child on a playground flailing and beating another into submission. Each one of my sword blows takes a metal chunk out of his blade, my blows growing stronger with each hit, my rage flowing like tainted blood through my veins.
His soul resists me, it eludes me, and I grow angry he doesn’t yield and submit to my judgment. I beat him harder, and his years of experience predicts my attacks, and he keeps blocking me with his increasingly destroyed and useless blade.
Die old man, die. Give me your soul.
I crave your soul.
I wish to judge it.
He retreats to the steps, his one hand keeping his battered metal blade between us, and me bearing down on him like a rabid feral cat, hissing and striking, demanding he release his life essence to me for judgment.
“Haven’t you lived long enough in this world, old man!”
My final blow snaps his sword in two, and my blade rests on his throat. The fear in his eyes tells me he is not ready. A long time ago his daughte
r died of sickness in his arms. His wife gave up her will to live. He joined this crusade to fight the forces of Hell, and the crusade itself became the same implement of wickedness and torture through corruption, power, and false men.
Their leader? The Disciple of War himself, the burning man. The one they fear? Now, it’s me. I have changed them, and I have changed myself.
I am death.
I am war.
I am both the false leader and the one who makes it easy to kill.
I have become the Four Horsemen. My prayers are forfeit. My path to Heaven closed. They have won, and I have lost. The world is gone. My family is gone. My children, gone. Any hope of escape or redemption is gone.
All because killing solves everything.
I drop my sword on the old man and step over him, walking up onto the torturer's platform. My eyes rest on the torturer. Guilty. So guilty. He backs up on the platform as I stare him down. His eyes show hatred and fear outside his bloodied leather hood, and he wears the apron of a butcher. My body is bloody, my wings are soaked in guilt, and my heart is too beaten to care.
Though, this man is a torturer. One who inflicts grievous misery on others for the lies of self-righteousness, false judgment, and sadistic punishment. Torturers work the hands of the Devil. Those who forgive them or call it justified heed the Devil’s whispers. Neither shall know peace, and neither shall know redemption.
I look at a knife, and I stare into his eyes.
He slits his throat, and I push his head down as I judge him.
Hell will have a special place for you.
CHAPTER XXVI:
We Are Lost
“Azrael?”
His face is a beautiful black man’s face, unshaven, but with the deepest blue-gray eyes. His head is bald with the smoothest skin. Scars and dried blood cover his body. Ropes bind his arms. Two large scars cross his back.
I feel the pain throb in my wings. His wings.
I take a rag and wipe his face clean, his eyes floating and lost in a sea of pain. I squeeze some water onto his lips, and he moans. “My…”
On Black Wings Page 13