Seeing the yetzer’s tongue flopping on the floor, Sett used his sword to flick it at one of the soldiers. The yetzer’s own blood kept the appendage from sticking to the sword. The tongue sailed through the air and smacked Private Arcas flat across the face, covering his mouth, nose, and one eye like a giant leach. The soldier screamed in horror, and tried to peel away the disgusting organ, but doing so glued his hands to his face and further immobilized him.
The nerve agent in the tongue worked its way in, and Arcas keeled over backwards like a felled statue onto the floor, frozen in a catatonic state, one eye staring up in terror. The nerve agent would wear off in a few hours, but removing the tongue from his hands and face would require a soaking in a special solvent made from the yetzer’s own bile. It was attention that the unfortunate soldier was unlikely to receive.
Phorcus shoved Hamanaeus to safety behind a nearby door and pointed his spleen gun revolver at Sett. Cornered in the alcove under the stairs, Sett had nowhere to flee. Phorcus hit the switch to the spleen gun. He kept his farewell speech short.
“Die, old man,” he said, and then he pulled the trigger.
23
Dog Eat Dog
“Grace, are you okay?”
The voice startled Grace. She turned with a gasp, and then never happier to see anyone in her life, she threw her arms around the young angel warrior. “Virgil, you made it!”
Virgil was fully armed now, having stopped at the yeshiva to retrieve his weapons. “Where’s Hera? Why isn’t she with you?”
“They captured her! In the woods between the disgronifiers and here.” She put her finger to her ear. “I hear her screaming. They are going to…to do something awful to her.”
“No, they aren’t. Do you have her coordinates?”
Grace unlatched a device from her utility belt. She punched a button and read off the location.
“Got it.” Virgil peered out from the clock tower and noted the blazing path of destruction. One celestial against an entire army of Anteros and cupid rebels, he thought. He had no words other than “Kohai should be arriving soon.”
“Hurry,” Grace said. “And be careful.”
Virgil nodded and spun off.
Captain Perseus stood on a hill peering down on the path of destruction below. He shook his head in disgust. This was not part of the plan. He turned his binoculars on the company led by Commando Ajax, and then on that under the command of Lieutenant Jason.
“A-holes,” he muttered. What a waste. It would all have to be rebuilt. Perseus was no fan of the Academy, but he didn’t consider himself a barbarian either. Seeing the smoking museums and libraries disgusted him. Thousands of years of recorded history erased in a couple hours of blazing fanaticism, Perseus lamented to himself.
He might have stopped them, but he didn’t want to risk a mutiny. Jason he could have handled—the temperamental lieutenant did not command the troops respect; he just appealed to their lust for blood and destruction.
Commando Ajax, however, was in a category all his own. The soldiers held him in awe. Not only did the giant stand head and shoulders above even the biggest Anteros soldier in size, but also in deed. Ajax was more than a living legend; he was myth incarnate, someone whose very presence gave validity to the sagas of the heroes of yore.
Jason was a lunatic; Ajax was an unbridled force of nature. Ajax did what he did because he could conceive of no other alternative. He was a mindless tornado, as oblivious to his actions as a typhoon or earthquake. Perseus knew he could have ordered him to back down, and Ajax would probably have followed his orders. Probably.
But, it wasn’t Ajax himself he feared; it was the mob mentality that always gathered in his presence. The soldiers were aroused by his power; they drew boldness from his might. They admired him as much as they dreaded him. The Goliath did not crave leadership. He was a loner and an army of one. He cared little about his fellow soldiers and never sought their following. It was just such indifference that his fellow soldiers found so awesome.
But what was done was done, Perseus thought, as the pincer of the two companies reunited into a single army at the bottom of the hill. He felt pity for the once glorious Academy upon which his forces were now ready to descend. The desolation that Ajax and Jason left behind was just a warm up; mere practice for what they intended to do next. What the soldiers really hungered for was the Academy and its campus.
There was a second reason Captain Perseus didn’t approve of the Shermanesque march through Heaven. His troops had forfeited any further hope of surprise. He figured that loyal cupids that had fled before the Anteros juggernaut would surely congregate at the Academy now, ready for a fight to the death—a last stand.
Perseus was certain that his army would be victorious, especially since the Academy’s best fighters were stuck on Earth. The disgronifiers in Anteros’s hands, there was no way for Sett, Volk and their cupid commandos to return, even if they managed to survive the surprise he knew awaited them below. Still, storming the Academy would result in needless casualties. The cupid soldiers were well-trained and decent fighters. One or two heroes among them could go far in stiffening their resolve.
He suddenly remembered a quote from his days as a cadet in the very Academy he was about to destroy. It was attributed to his favorite human general, Alexander the Great: “It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.”
Perseus didn’t know why such an adage would suddenly pop into his head, and the recollection unnerved him a little. There was something ominous about it.
He cast his eyes over his waiting troops and spotted the towering Ajax, standing at the head of his company, alone as usual, his mane of long, black hair tossing in the breeze. Perseus started down the hill to reassume his command. He smiled with a new sense of assuredness. “Now that’s a lion,” he said to himself.
The jackals moved closer.
“Stop,” Hera pleaded. Her back was against a tree, and she had nowhere to run, even should she have dared. “Angels do not behave this way! I beg of you, do not do this evil thing! God is watching you, do not mock His righteous anger!”
“What the fuck is she yammering about?” said Cadet Cottus, the largest of the cadets, and Hector’s muscle.
“No shit,” said the fourth, Cadet Apis. Apis was Hector’s yes-man. Neither particularly big nor tough, he was nonetheless always eager to win Hector’s smirking approval. “Who talks like that?”
“Celestial,” Eos said professorially, “prepare to learn first-hand that no one gives a damn about you: neither cupid nor god. Your fate belongs to us, and if you’re smart, you will make the best of your situation.”
“Hold this,” Hector said, handing his rifle to Apis. He stepped up to Hera and put his hand on her cheek as he leaned in for a kiss. She slapped him across the face.
“Bitch!” he roared, slapping her back twice as hard. Hera’s cheek flamed. He shoved her against the tree, grabbed the front of her blouse and ripped it open, sending the buttons flying.
Hera tried to cover herself but Hector grabbed her hand and twisted it, spinning the celestial around and pinning her arm against her back. She cried in pain, and then felt Hector’s tongue against the nape of her neck, lapping at it like a dog.
“No,” she begged. “Please, stop!”
The other cadets squirmed with impatience, hardly able to contain their excitement.
“Cut with the foreplay, Hector,” Cadet Cottus complained. “We don’t have all day. Perseus and the others are probably massing to attack the Academy already. We don’t want to miss out on the real fun.”
The others bleated in agreement.
Without waiting for Hector’s consent, Cottus kicked out Hera’s right leg from under her, causing her to fall facedown onto the ground. He shoved his rifle into Apis’s arms, and then bent down and flipped Hera onto her back. Dropping to his knees, Apis pinned the celestial’s arms beneath them so that Hector could get on with it
.
Hector grinned demonically, his eyes wild with lust. He threw up Hera’s skirt and unbuckled his pants, as the other cadets twittered in anticipation.
Just then they heard a strange rustling in the bushes behind them.
“Dobey!” Eos ordered the dog. “Sic ‘em!”
The big Doberman tore off growling behind the bushes. A second later, the cadets heard a high-pitched yelp, and saw the dog go flying over their heads as if carried by a gust of wind.
“The fuck!” Eos exclaimed. He lowered his rifle towards the commotion and fired off rounds of photons into the bushes, turning them into smoldering mulch.
Then came a second rustling sound off to their side. Eos wheeled and discharged another series of rounds to the same effect. A moment later they heard yet another stirring, this time across the way from where Eos had just fired.
“We’re surrounded!” Apis yelled. He lifted Hector’s rifle, but before he could fire, he dropped it. His hands clutched at a small, amethyst throwing knife protruding from his throat. He gurgled, keeled over backwards, and squirmed on the ground.
Cadet Eos yelped, then inexplicably shot straight up into the air. The cadets gaped in astonishment. His legs kicking wildly, Eos was now fifteen feet above their heads, dangling by his neck from a cord wrapped around the limb of a tree.
Cadets Cottus and Hector scrambled for their rifles. Cottus dove for his, rolled, and came up firing, spraying the surrounding woods with fizzing blue photons. Hector, whose pants were at his knees, tripped and fell on his face. In a panic, he clambered to pull them up, securing them just in time to see Cottus crumple to the ground, an arrow in his chest. Hector dove for his rifle.
“Opa!”
A brilliant, ruby-red cord of light shot out of nowhere and lashed at his grasping hand. Hector yanked back his flayed hand and screamed in pain. The smell of burnt flesh rushed into his nostrils.
“Back away, Hector.”
Hector looked up and blinked in dismay as his rival, Cadet Virgil, emerged from the bushes. He was dressed in a strange uniform; the likes of which Hector had never seen before. It meshed perfectly with the foliage behind him. He had no gun, but on his back was a bow and quiver of arrows, at his right side a scabbard with long sword, and on his left, a scabbard with short sword. From his utility belt dangled two Okinawan batons, a coiled rope, and a snake whip. In the cadet’s hand was an odd-looking seven-inch, metallic stick.
Hector surveyed the carnage. Cottus was dead. Apis was dead, his blood soaking into the pine needles on the forest floor. And above hung Eos, now lifeless. Was Virgil alone? He wondered. Did he do all that? He glanced at the rifle again, just a lunge away.
“Are you okay?” Virgil asked Hera, who was as stunned as Hector.
Hera nodded and slowly got to her feet, turning her back to Virgil as she wrapped her ripped blouse around herself and tucked its tails into her skirt to hold it in place. She turned back around, but still in shock, said nothing.
“It’s going to be okay,” Virgil said.
“How’d you get here?” Hector said. “You were with Sett’s party. The disgronifiers are in our hands.”
Virgil ignored his question. “You’re a disgrace, Hector. To the Academy, to everything that is decent, to God above.”
“Up yours, Mr. Goody Fucking Two-shoes,” Hector spat. “There is no more stinking Academy. Heaven belongs to Anteros now!”
“Not yet, Hector.” He saw the cadet take another furtive glance at the rifle. Virgil picked up the gun and flung it away.
Seeing his chance, Hector rushed. Virgil grabbed the cadet’s uniform, dropped to his back, and with his feet, launched the cadet somersaulting head over heels. Hector smashed into the trunk of a tree and hit the ground headfirst. He groaned and shook the stars from his eyes.
Snorting like a bull, Hector staggered to his feet and glared at Virgil with seething hatred. He withdrew a demon dagger, and screaming curses, charged Virgil again.
Virgil stopped him in his tracks with a lightning fast snap kick to the groin. Then, yanking the Okinawan tonfas from his belt—two-handled batons made from white oak—he drummed Hector with a flurry of strikes, cracking a dozen bones in the cadet’s arms, legs, and ribs. As Hector stood crippled and wobbling, Virgil rammed one of the tonfas into Hector’s mouth, knocking out his teeth. He followed up with the coup de grâce, a crescent kick to the head, dropping the cadet to the ground. Hector writhed in agony, gagging on his own blood and teeth.
Virgil walked over to Hera. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She nodded.
“I’ll take you to the yeshiva,” he said. “They’ll never find you there.”
“No,” Hera said resolvedly. “Take me to Grace. Where she goes, I go. Her God is my God. Where she dies, I will die!”
“I understand,” Virgil said. With that, he swept Hera onto his broad shoulders and whirled off.
Hector could hardly believe his eyes. “How the fu—” He choked on the blood in his mouth, coughed, and spat out two teeth.
He tried to get up, but the pain coursing through his body was too excruciating. He heard a rustling in the bushes. It had to be one of the other squads patrolling the woods. “Here!” he cried. “Over here! Help me!”
Dobey the big Doberman stepped into the clearing. The dog stared at his helpless, blood-covered master.
“Where the fuck have you been, dumb-ass dog? Go get help.”
The scent of Hector’s blood drew the dog closer. Dobey snarled, bared his fangs, and remembered all the times that Hector had kicked him.
24
Ride of the Valkyrie
Rosso winced as Gideon tore the tape from his mouth. “What do you want?” he growled. “Money?”
“No,” Gideon said. “Revenge.”
“Revenge for what?”
“All the innocent people you have killed.”
“What on earth are you talking about? Are you mad?”
“One of us certainly is.”
“Untie me and I’ll see to it you leave these premises alive.”
“Answer my questions,” Gideon rejoined, pulling a small vial from his breast pocket, “and I’ll see to it you don’t die of a sudden heart attack in your office.”
Rosso glared at Gideon. “What’s your game? And what the hell is he doing?” He turned a suspicious eye on Cyrus, who was studying the back of Rosso’s office, running his fingers along the bookcase and inspecting various items on the shelves.
“Tell me about the Lamed-Vavniks,” Gideon said.
“The what?”
“The thirty-six tzaddikim. You are trying to eliminate them. I want to know why.”
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. What kind of insanity is this?”
Gideon pulled out a syringe, inserted the needle into the vial, and drew up its colorless liquid. He held it up to Rosso’s face.
“We don’t have much time,” Gideon said calmly. “I don’t need to kill you, but I will if you don’t start talking.”
“Thirty-six what?”
“Righteous men. But you’ve been behind the murder of a hell of a lot more than that.”
“Kill righteous people?” Rosso said, appalled. “How ludicrous can you be? I’ve dedicated my life to righteous causes! I’ve won a Nobel Peace Prize, for Chrissake. I’ve been honored at the United Nations, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and awards from every prestigious organization in the world dedicated to social just—”
“You’re only proving my case,” Gideon interrupted. “How are we doing over there, Mike?” Gideon asked Cyrus.
“I think we’re good to go,” Cyrus answered, and turned to the computer.
The device had stopped flashing. Cyrus withdrew the memory stick and put it into his pocket. Next, he walked over to the far end of the office and stepped on a particular floorboard. The entire bookcase swung open, revealing a hidden room containing dozens of boxes, and a tall, black, antique safe. There were no do
ors in the room, but on one wall was a small, curtained window.
“Don’t tell me,” Gideon said to Cyrus. “You’ve known a few people with secret rooms in your day.”
“You’d be surprised how popular such things can be,” Cyrus said.
Cyrus had searched for and found hundreds of persons scattered through the six degrees of separation who had installed revolving bookcases, and after some inspecting, determined which kind of trigger Rosso’s used.
Gideon gave the office chair Rosso was tied to a stern thrust with his foot and sent the old man in a spinning roll across the room and into the chamber. Cyrus and Gideon followed, and then Cyrus stepped on another floorboard and returned the bookcase to its original position, shutting them all inside. He hit a switch and turned on the light.
“How could you have possibly known about this room?” Rosso said. “No living person knows about it.”
“That’s not all I know,” Cyrus said. He ran his hand against the back of the bookcase at what would be eye level for a man of Rosso’s height. He stopped. “Here we go,” he said, pushing against the wooden back panel. A spring-loaded square popped open revealing behind it a 10” x 10” inch two-way mirror. “We can see out, but no one can see in.”
Gideon grinned in amusement. The guy never ceased to amaze him. He turned back to Rosso, who had gone another shade of gray.
“Now, where were we,” Gideon said, twirling the syringe cavalierly between his fingers.
“Who are you?” Rosso demanded again. “Who do you work for? Whatever they are paying you, it’s a fraction of what I’ll pay you to walk away right now.”
“Not interested.”
“A hundred-million globals,” Rosso said. “You can live like kings for the rest of your lives.”
“You’re worth about a hundred billion globals the last I heard, and look at you. Neither all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men will put Alexander Rosso back together again. Now, why did you do it?”
Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3 Page 77