To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1)

by Sean M O'Connell

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  “You look awful.”

  Hunter Valdez curled his lip in disgust at the ragged woman who stood before him in one of his many offices. “And you smell even worse.”

  Indeed she did.

  All of them carried a characteristic odor, even him. This girl though, she took it to a whole different level.

  If she was offended by his comments, it didn’t register on her bizarre face.

  The woman didn’t so much as open her mouth to offer explanation or objection. She just stared at him through the curtain of dirty hair hanging in front of her black eyes.

  Though her appearance left much to be desired, Valdez was secretly impressed.

  In the days since the throng had gathered at the base of his tower, he had taken in the strongest of those affected by the changes and put them to work. Offering exorbitant sums of money and luxurious accommodations in return for information and loyal service, he had secured himself a sort of on-call army.

  Some of his new employees loitered around the tower entrances, acting as security officers. They were infinitely more vicious and intelligent than any guard dog.

  Despite their presence, this woman had made it as far as his offices, the very inner sanctum of his tower.

  Conjecture suggested that the fresh blood coating her forearms was evidence to suggest that she had done a bit of work reducing the size of his work force in order to infiltrate this far into his sanctum. With just a small tinge of regret he thought of the deceased Julani and the absent Brown.

  Hard to find good help.

  Hunter Valdez leaned back in his chair and gestured toward the sidebar, where a vast and varied array of foods waited. He himself had begun pacing his consumption, but the half-empty plates and trays bore testament to the persistent state of famine that he had a hard time shaking.

  The ugly woman accepted his invitation silently and began rummaging through the food.

  He would have to throw away what she didn’t eat. She was filthy, and she was not shy about touching all of his buffet.

  He tried a different approach.

  “Your tattoos and scars are very interesting. I recognize some of the iconography. The pentacles and such are typical black magic. But there, the cockerel’s head, that is real santeria, No?”

  In the mirrors on the wall, Hunter could see that the backs of her shoulders bore more arcana.

  Finally, she responded.

  Her voice was disturbingly childlike, ill-fitting her appearance.

  “Do not pretend to have an understanding of that which you don’t Mr. Valdez.”

  Her tone was insolent, insulting. He was tired of her already.

  “Perhaps you, miss, should be careful of how you speak to me.”

  She raised an eyebrow in his direction and spoke around a mouthful of tortilla chips, crumbs falling as her mouth moved.

  “Why should I fear you? You hide up here in our plush tower and pay meaningless money to brainless servants while others do the work you are suited for.“

  Even before his transformation, Valdez had seen people buried for lesser insults. The ability now to suppress his rising temper was nearly miraculous.

  “And what work would that be?” he bit back.

  Momentarily, she paused in her grazing, half of a cheese puff dangling from her lips. It dropped to the floor when she spoke.

  “The culling of the Angels.”

  Valdez scoffed. An ugly noise that bounced off the mirrored walls and sunk into the expensive carpet.

  “Angels? You call them Angels?”

  She met his incredulous glare with a patronizing smile that turned up just one corner of her mouth.

  “Yes.”

  She offered no further explanation, and he decided none was required. It made little difference how his enemies were titled, what was important is how they were handled.

  He continued his inquiry, slightly unsettled by the way this woman talked to him. She certainly wasn’t afraid. Her relaxed posture and the way she attended to her meal said as much. None of the typical uneasiness or deference he experienced with virtually everyone who came to him. Nothing.

  “What is your name woman?” His tone was polite now, smarmy.

  She once again turned her eyes on him. So dark, and much older than her face. As if they had seen too much. A scarred shoulder shrugged toward her ear.

  “I don’t remember it. I have gone by many names. My real name was traded away long ago.” Valdez was more familiar with dark magic than most, due to his Rio di Janeiro upbringing. Her cryptic explanation did not surprise him as much as it might another.

  “Most people call me bruja, witch. Or worse.” She tittered in her odd girlish manner. “Actually, most people don’t call me anything at all.”

  More food disappeared into her mouth. She was missing molars.

  “Why did you come here witch?” He grew more impatient by the second.

  “I came here to help you.”

  With that, she muttered something under her breath, words in a language he almost recognized. The entire spread of vittles that she had just finished picking at shifted. Air shook in a way he had only seen once before, many years ago as a child in Brazil. In a blinking of twisted perception, the countertop was carpeted with tiny dark flowers instead of food.

  He feigned disinterest, not well.

  She whispered again, and the little dark flowers exploded off of the flat surface in a flutter of myriad wings.

  Not flowers, but moths. The insects whirled around her head and flocked toward him.

  One more whispered word and the bugs became ash and fell to the floor. Little bits of their passing dribbled onto Valdez’s shirt and bounced off of his skin.

  Through the whole display, she had never taken her eyes off of him, no doubt reading his reaction. One perfectly manicured eyebrow raised in the witch’s direction.

  “Impressive Bruja, but I have no need for a magician. In fact, the four acts that I hired for the opening of this resort are still alive. All of them. If I want a rabbit pulled out of a hat, I’m sure any of them would be happy to oblige.”

  She laughed at him, abrupt and loud in the privacy of the room. The sound of ill-concealed insanity.

  “I am not here to put on a show for you, and this is no act.” One more ancient syllable and the ashy powder started burning. Bluish flames licked up from the floor, melting the synthetic carpet fibers into black curls of stinking plastic. The acrid odor crawled up into Valdez’s sinuses.

  “Enough.” He brushed little flames off of his jacket and tie. “What is it that you want?”

  She wandered up to the mirrors and stared intently at herself. Tracing shapes on the glass with a greasy finger to match the burns and scabs on her body.

  “Your friend Brown found me and sent me here. Told me he was hunting down one of your former employees. He told me you had grand plans and that you could use somebody with my skills.”

  Valdez nodded patiently, repeating his question as he did.

  “And what is it that you want?” Nothing came free. Not even to Hunter Valdez

  Her smile was cold and menacing. Valdez had seen the same smile in his own mirror.

  “I want the blonde bitch.”

  “Serena?”

  She nodded.

  “When the Brazilian brings her back. She’s mine.”

  Valdez pondered for a moment. He had no idea how this strange woman even knew of his former assistant. He didn’t much care. If he could promise her whatever revenge she dreamed of in exchange for her services, that was a bargain. Of course there would be no intention of honoring any promise he made to her or to anyone else.

  Serena and the veterinarian would be dealt with however he saw fit once they were returned to him.

  To offer this witch her payback was a small concession.

  No concession at all really, because it was a lie.

  “She’s all yours.” A white slash of smile split the almond bro
wn of his face.

  The Bruja returned his grin, the menace replaced by childlike pleasure, as if he had just given her a birthday gift.

  She left the room. Valdez watched her go, noting that the mirror she had been tracing on no longer threw off reflection. The glass shone flat and pewter dull.

  Alone again, Hunter wondered about the bizarre woman.

  No doubt she was cunning.

  No doubt he could put her talents to good use.

  The more pressing question was how long could she be handled before she turned dangerous?

  Wild animals made notoriously poor pets.

  Decrypted Archival File 0034-867

  KC Chris Jiulkenen Deacon: Pacifica Province, WUN

  Entry 1: Reassignment to Special Operations Sacramental Priority Unit. Confirmed Nicholas Burgos Bishop, KC Adam Ironday Pope

  Entry 2: Emergency Deployment to Continental United States, Nellis AFB.

  Pacific Airspace

  “So Peni.” the man named Deacon half-shouted over the drone of engine noise. They sat facing one another, Peni’s back agains the cargo webbing inside the fuselage of a borrowed Air Force C-5B transport plane. “Tell me how it is that you managed to work both sides of the most brutal crime war in history without getting killed.”

  Whoever had done their research on him had done so quickly. Peni could appreciate that.

  “What do you wanna know Deacon?”

  The soldier shrugged. “I worked DEA when I was younger. Tell me something they didn’t teach us in Cartel school.”

  Settling his broad shoulders back into the uncomfortable seat of the transport plane, Peni decided he had nothing to lose by telling this man his story.

  “I was one of the original seven Moa boys. Original. The first ainga.” he started. “Bet you already knew that though.”

  Deacon nodded.

  “We had the Japs on the ropes. Killed one of the actual family members. Moa thought things were swinging our way and we’d stop the slave trade and take over the money.”

  In the back of his mind, Peni realized that he’d never told this story out loud. He’d read it in papers and gone over it many times in his own head, but never really told anybody.

  Oh well. Times are changing.

  “The Japs ambushed us outside my momma’s house.” he continued. “They used a damn RPG in the neighborhood. Ruthless bastards. I woke up on a hospital bed inside a Waikiki hotel suite with old man Matsubara himself waiting for me.”

  “Kei Matsubara? You actually met him?”

  It was well documented that the crime-lord kept himself sequestered. Law enforcement officials at the time weren’t even sure that he lived in the States, or whether he actually existed at all.

  “I met him. He hired me I guess you could say. Told me that if I didn’t cooperate he’d kill my whole family.”

  “You believed him?”

  “Of course. The Yakuza got no guilt. Business is business. He’d have killed his own family if they stood in the way. He was a reasonable man, though. We negotiated terms for my ‘contract’. I told him how he could destroy Moa’s empire without killing any of the clan and making it personal.”

  “You’re telling me that it was you who tipped the Matsubaras off to the underground warehouses?”

  Peni nodded his huge head slowly. Either this Deacon had read Peni’s file extra carefully, or he was telling the truth and had actually been DEA.

  “And the grow houses. Also the bank that we cleaned all of our money through. Unfortunately for Moa, once the money dried up, so did lots of the loyalty. He just couldn’t hang anymore.”

  “Did he retaliate against you?”

  “Who? Moa? No. He never knew I was playing both sides. Matsubara arranged it that way. Moa stopped bribing some of his contacts and Honolulu PD and things got real heavy. Somebody left him dead on Kamilo beach not too long after.” Peni was surprised to hear the lack of regret in his own voice.

  “Anyway, the Japs were reasonable, like I said. So once the competition was finished and they had a firm hold on the underground of the islands again, they cut me loose. The old man told them I was protected, even filled a bank account for me and gave me the piece of land where my house sits now.”

  “Home free.” Deacon marveled. More a statement than a question.

  “Home free.” Peni agreed.

  Now the soldier leaned in close, his features narrowing in mock puzzlement.

  “So how come you didn’t let the Yakuza live?”

  There it is. The set up.

  Peni didn’t appreciate being baited into telling such a dark part of his personal past, but he wasn’t about to show this man. It took balls for the soldier to press him this way, especially knowing what Peni was capable of.

  “Secrets like that will chase you forever if you don’t tie up the loose ends Deacon.” he made a knot-tying motion with his broad hands. “and the Japs were still trading in children. I wasn’t about to have that on my mind. So I called a palangi buddy of mine who liked to blow things up and paid him to take care of it.”

  “And it was him who bombed the Matsubara headquarters?”

  Peni nodded again. This time with finality.

  “Sometimes you gotta do bad things to accomplish good things Mr. Deacon. I’m sure you understand that.”

  Deacon sat back and relaxed, wearing a sort of haunted smile on his face.

  “Yes. I can understand that.”

  Their conversation over, Peni stretched.

  He hated traveling. Not so much the spending time away from home, but the actual stretch between destinations confined to a cramped seat in a small space.

  He never wore a watch, so he wasn’t sure exactly how many hours he had spent on the transport plane that took off from Pearl Harbor’s floating air strip.

  Any one of the serious-looking men in black uniforms would have been able to tell him exactly how long the trip had taken. Down to the last minute and second probably.

  It felt like a very long time.

  Intermittent spells of dozing and wakefulness passed for Peni before the plane finally touched down in the pinkish light of a Nevada dawn.

  A few short minutes later, the enormous rear door of the transport plane opened and the soldiers began unloading themselves and their equipment onto the tarmac

  He followed them out onto the runway and took a deep breath, regretting it immediately.

  The air here was acrid and dry. It stank of jet fuel and worse things. All around him men in black fatigues bustled and darted, emptying the transport and moving the black PVC crates into waiting Blackhawk helicopters. The high squeal of their propeller turbines whined at him across the tarmac.

  One of the busy-bee soldiers, a young Mexican with a serious face, gestured for Peni to head to the first in the line of copters. Peni obliged, and three others fell into step with him. As far as he knew, he was the only one of them who had been changed. He was also the only one not carrying a gun.

  The man named Deacon approached him.

  “Do you understand the mission?” He shouted over the rising sound of the helicopter engines. Peni nodded. They had been debriefed on the flight as to what they were charged with attempting. Whatever military mastermind had drafted the plan left no contingency unaccounted for. Except Peni was still completely unconvinced that their plan would work.

  In the hours over the Pacific, Peni and several other former civilians had memorized plans A, B, C, and it seemed like Z. They’d pored over schematics, time estimates, abort signals. A special-ops crash course.

  Deacon had assured them all that when the time came, they would know exactly what to do.

  Peni wasn’t exactly convinced, but he shrugged off the worry in his typical manner and waited for the action to start.

  “Very good,” Deacon continued “Remember, you and the other Flyers will have to infiltrate the tower on your own. Choppers nine and ten will attempt to land extraction teams on the roof, but that takes time. We pref
er a smash and grab.”

  Half paying attention, Peni wondered at why the serious man had waited for the deafening thunder of the runway to have this little talk.

  “Don’t worry bradah Deacon,” Peni responded. “I know what to do.”

  The military man, whatever his rank was, reached up and gripped the Hawaiian’s thick shoulder. He offered a hand and said. “God Speed.”

  Then he was gone.

  Peni could see that the soldier was deeply worried, maybe even a little guilty for sending untrained combatants to what he had already assured them would be a hostile situation.

  Peni didn’t consider himself inexperienced, and certainly didn’t qualify as a lamb being led to the slaughter. They had offered him a firearm. Something bulky and black. He had refused.

  As he mounted his airborne chariot, he looked in turn at each of the hard young men that accompanied him. They were thick-muscled, well trained, armed to the teeth. Smelling of salt and exhaust, each man checked and re-checked his weapons and ordinances. Pocket snaps and zippers sounded in the small space, the sharp little noises contrasting with the drone of the turbines. One of the soldiers gestured for Peni to put on his headset.

  Eventually he would get used to the protocols without being reminded.

  Once again it was Deacon’s voice he heard over the communicator, reviewing the plans. The instructions were fairly straightforward. It was to be what the brass called a “hostile extraction”. Kidnapping was a more accurate description of their endeavor, or maybe ‘arrest‘. But Peni tuned in to listen anyway.

  “Target is likely take up a well-defended position indoors. Target is to be considered armed and dangerous. Flyers will infiltrate and extract, Monks provide suppression and covering fire at ingress and egress points. Secondary extraction team will stand by at one-and-a-half clicks.”

  Monks.

  It was the term used to characterize the men seated around him, and in the other choppers. They all wore it on their nameplates. Peni had at first mistaken it for an actual name. He now assumed that Deacon’s name was not really Deacon.

  That took a lot of dedication, giving up your real name.