Too many.
Aaron noted with dread that the sky was thick with winged combatants. Knowing how many of the local Angels were spread across the West, and even the world, he could only deduce that the enemy had reinforced themselves.
One whole quarter of the Capitol building’s dome was aflame. Chemical-looking green fire crawled up and out across the cupola.
He turned to June.
“Are you hearing this?”
She was.
“Remind me again what Wicked is?” she asked
“Not what, who. She is Valdez’s secret weapon.”
“The witch?”
“Bruja.” He corrected. Not that it mattered.
“She is here?” June’s voice piqued with a mix of disbelief and excitement.
“Not here, here. At West. Sounds like they are getting hit hard down there.”
Rounding the final bend, the trees and rock outcrops of the Grove gave way to broad manicured lawns and official-looking white granite government buildings.
The formerly beautiful Capitol grounds were now a chewed mess. Century-old cottonwood and oak trees had been leveled to clear sight-lines and bolster barricades. Sandbagged foxholes on the south and west lawns housed gunner nests full of steely-eyed Monks and hot expended casings. They swiveled their weapons around on ball turrets and pot-shot into the wheeling shapes overhead, careful not to hit Angels. Sharpshooters lay in rows along every roof and balcony and ledge, aiming down the hill, to where the Fallen’s mercenary helpers launched reckless attacks from behind car-sized blockades. Two snipers even hung from harnesses attached to the Capitol’s uppermost weathervane. One of them lolled limply against the Kevlar straps, the huge optical scope mounted on his rifle thumped into his leg.
Dead?
.
A bluish pall of gun smoke hung like one of Saturn’s rings around the whole scene, lending a theatric air to the already loaded moment. The noise was unbearable, the visuals exhausting. The Capitol was under heavy assault, and the situation was far from under control.
Aaron Dayne made a decision.
“Iota Convoy, this is Redskin. Change of plans, we head to West High School and aide in neutralizing the Wicked situation.”
June raised an eyebrow in his direction and shook her head slightly with knowing disapproval. She undoubtedly thought Aaron’s decision to divert from their assigned task was based around Serena.
He frowned back at June, and returned her head shake.
Serena can handle herself. She’s an Angel now.
He convinced himself in a heartbeat that his decision was a strategic one and not personal. Nobody challenged him. Not even June.
“Angel Rogers’ cell and Angel Huerta’s cell; stay here and help with the Hill defense.”
It looked to Aaron like the western lawn was hardest hit. He could spare eight men and two Angels to help Scott and Bishop and the rest here at headquarters.
“Monk, let’s go.”
Somehow the driver knew to step on the gas, though Aaron could never figure out how. The Monks had a remarkable way of discerning who orders or questions were meant for, despite the fact that, aside from officers, they were all referred to simply as Monk. Even the newer ones.
“How are we going to get down to West?” June asked him. Though she was behind him, he could read the frown in her voice.
“If we go back through the Grove it’ll take at least twenty minutes. Serena and the others should have things handled by then.”
The young Angel was right. The canyon road was slow and winding, and they would have to go the opposite direction before they could double back toward the school.
Aaron made another snap decision, this one a bigger gamble than his soldiering mind would usually allow.
Perhaps his personal connection with Serena was influencing him more than he cared to admit, even to himself.
“We need to hurry down there and neutralize Wicked. That’s Valdez’s second in command! We’ll have to get down the hard way.” As he said so he slammed the first of the ammo belts into its feeder and spun the barrel winch for effect.
June’s eyes shone goldish brown in the direct sunlight as she mounted the hood and whipped her wings wide. Peacock blue highlights on one side, bright copper on the other. She got the message. Aaron watched her face change from its usual sardonic set into harder lines.
Even over the sporadic gunfire, he heard the characteristic sound of five more huge sets of wings flexing open, following June’s cue. Great gulps of air stirred the ashes and dry grass as they leapt skyward. On Aaron’s cue, the convoy followed, toward the place where two overturned cars and an unknown number of Heaters and their mercenaries blocked the road that would take them downhill, to West High School.
Under Siege. Where hundreds of refugees were camped in the auditorium, cafeteria and gymnasium. Where the chemistry lab had been converted into a clinic.
Where Serena was.
Where the Bruja was.
He looked back to confirm that the Monks were ready. As always, they were.
Fingering the dual triggers of the gun, Aaron took aim and fired.
The chain guns were specially designed. Heavy, but mobile. Israeli made, after the original General Electric manufacturer had outsourced and closed its doors. The ball turret -originally designed for mounting on helicopters- was ideally suited for air-to-ground or ground-to-air attacks. The belts of ammunition feeding themselves rapidly through the six chambers held “soft” bullets. The Monks called them flowers, because of the way their plastine tips allowed them to open on impact and tear ragged holes into their targets- like hollow-points on steroids. Every third was a tracer round. Twice per second, an orange path burnt into the air, allowing the gunner to adjust his aim without the use of optical sights.
Aaron was experienced with all types of weaponry, and while he was partial to his own battle-tested Mini G, the spin of the multiple barrels and heavy damage impressed him immediately. He poured half a belt into the roadblock in the time it took to draw four breaths. The heat from the tracer rounds set fire to the upholstery of one of the cars.
The Monk driving the truck floored the accelerator, building momentum to smash through the barricade and trusting his fellows to weaken the barrier before impact. Aaron estimated the time they had.
Twelve seconds..
Bullets pinged off of the truck’s armor from a nearby rooftop. Out of the corner of his eye Aaron saw a flash of white and yellow, an Angel whose name he didn’t know. The rooftop shooter tumbled silently down to the sidewalk below and landed in a broken heap. A moment later the broken pieces of his rifle rained down around him. The Angel kept moving.
Nine seconds.
Aaron concentrated his fire on the burning car. The soft bullets were not much for penetrating metal, but he banked on the sheer volume of fire being enough to burst a fuel tank and blow the car, thereby creating a gap for the convoy to slip through.
Empty. Reload. Six seconds.
The car was not exploding. And the convoy was still taking heavy fire. Monks picked off twenty, thirty, more. But the resistance at the roadblock was firm.
Buildings on either side of the street had been taken as well. Their windows bristling with rifles like so many thorns on a bush. Ahead and to his left, Aaron saw another white flash of movement. This time it was one of their Angels falling from the sky. Too fast for him to see exactly who, but a halo glowed, he was sure. Something hot whizzed by his ear, and behind him he heard tires blow and the scream of bare metal rim on asphalt.
Three seconds. Two…
He hunkered down behind his turret and prepared for impact. The chewed-up car had no fuel in it, which meant no path-clearing explosion.
Just before the truck smashed into the roadblock June and a broad-shouldered Angel named Derek dipped into view. Each of them grabbed a handful of hot metal and lifted the smoldering car by its frame. Together they yanked the wreck high above the street and dumped it back down
behind the other overturned pile, on top of an awestruck group of mercenaries.
The three remaining vehicles in the convoy roared through the gap. Followed by the Angels. More bullets chattered off the bumpers and rear tailgates, and then they were clear. Headed downhill to West High School, where another fight waited.
In the breaths between battles, Aaron saw the Monks reloading and making their mysterious gesture in honor of the fallen Angel. They did it twice. Two more dead.
Aaron’s jaw clenched against the incoming rush of fury. Before the red light could creep in, June slammed down into the truck bed behind him. Dark red blood spilled from a bullet wound on her shoulder and her hands were raw. Burnt when she lifted the car. Keeping her wings spread behind her, she tossed her hair out of her face.
And smiled.
Decrypted Archival File 0233-776
KC Casey Morgan Deacon : Cristo Province, Brazil
Entry 1: Special Operations order: KC Martin Mazzone Cardinal confirmed. Zion Province Swan Cells to perform Critical Intervention on behalf of Angels and civilians at Cristo Redentor Monument. En route.
Entry 2: Scriptural Priority- Establish contact with Monsignor Rafael Cruz of the Vatican College of Technology and Science. Reported Angel and leader of resistance to attack at Cristo Redentor. Unconfirmed.
Rio Di Janeiro, Brazil
How many!?” To Rafael Cruz, the voice shouting the question hardly sounded like his own.
In his previous life of hospitals and cathedrals and Vatican hallways he had rarely found cause to yell. It took him back to his youth, the loudness, the hoarseness of throat. Apparently, God had seen fit to yet again test His servant’s resolve and usefulness in the face of adversity.
After the loss of two brothers and the scars and the repetitive scenes of pestilence and plague, Cruz had stopped questioning and carried out his duties in the same way the worker ant lugs too-large loads of crumbs and vegetable matter back to an unappreciative queen.
Struggle and pain were constants in life. To avoid them was to waste energy better spent on overcoming.
Tonight, the overcoming would require a great effort.
The enemy came in a swarm, metamorphosing from a far-off dark mass into individual nightmares with dark wings and foul intentions.
Even at this distance, he sensed their fury.
It pushed before them on the sea-wind, fouling the air around the Cristo and once again stirring the ever-present pigeons and gulls into panicked flight. Cruz watched his little winged companions go with a measure of envy.
The birds had become his friends, unafraid for some reason to rest on his hands or head or knees when he was still, and often following him and his fellows like miniature shadows when they took to the air.
With the good sense of survival they fled this coming battle.
Far below the broken line of his exhausted comrades, the priest imagined his followers wishing to join the birds in their simple escape. To vanish into the green canopy or even back into the urban jungle from which they came.
The first time, they had come like something from a night terror. Fourteen of the Angels gathered at the Cristo had found haloes in that shattered morning. Many more of the terrified masses gathered at the foot of the great sculpture had been carried away and buried as well.
Worse, Father Cruz himself had drawn blood and crushed the life out of several of their attackers.
There was little choice, but what consolation was he to find in that?
An ordained Catholic priest, killing with his bare hands on the slick tiles of the courtyard and even smashing a skull against the soapstone robes of the Redeemer himself.
Blasphemy.
Only grim dismay could be felt as he watched another wave of attackers obscure the dying western light. Silhouetted in the lavender and orange glow of another postcard sunset, they brought with them the promise of death.
Only death.
Cruz steeled himself for the physical pain that he would endure, and for so much worse. Ugly twisting guilt kicked in his gut each time he watched the bodies of another day’s conflict be dragged away to the already overfilled mass graves below, in the dark city. He repeated his question.
“How many!?”
A chorus of answers came back from his friends as they wheeled upward and around him, each readying for another battle. Their voices carried the weight of a slack-tongued exhaustion that made Raphael fear for the aftermath of what bore down like poisoned wind. These few remaining Angels of his hadn’t slept a full night in weeks, some longer than that. They guarded the civilians below with an inhuman diligence that depleted even their miraculously enhanced bodies. The encampment of prayerful and desperate refugees from the madness of Rio grew a bit every day. Already there were thousands, spilling down the stairs and steep streets of the Corcovado in haphazard concert. More mouths to feed, larger groups of foragers to protect.
Cruz thanked God for the fresh water pipelines that had long ago been snaked up underneath walkways and tree roots to feed the insatiable tourist thirst.
Even that precious lifeline was growing more brackish. Probably a result of unmanned or neglected water treatment plants that had been sub-par to begin with. For now though, it was a blessing.
Such concerns evaporated in the moment of his immediate need.
In the here and now, the glowering sky portended not rain, but pain. He rubbed habitually at the place on his neck where scars had once been and murmured a prayer in the name of the monolith they all gathered to protect.
All around him, the pitiful gathering of Angels heaved and whirled, tired warhorses still pawing to be loosed.
He knew that they waited for him, their accidental captain, whose collar gave him authority that even wings from God could not.
Father Cruz despaired at their acceptance of his violence and their need for his approval. But he served his purpose as he knew he always must.
In a voice that should have been too soft for all of them to hear, he uttered a simple word.
“Vamos”
The youngest of them, a dark-skinned boy named Paulo -who for some reason never ever spoke- shot off toward the approaching horde. He hurtled roughly, with the reckless bravery possessed only by youth. Just this morning, Cruz had watched the same young man grimace in agony as his ribs slowly inched themselves back into place following a grievous encounter with a street gang on a foraging run.
Just as a woman forgets the pain of childbirth, this one threw himself into yet another battle with a passion that belied his sleep-deprived and famished state.
If indeed one could survive on the Word of God alone, as the Bible said, these Angels were doing it.
Close behind Paulo followed two Sisters, barely younger than Cruz, but as wild as the bandit children of the Rio Streets. They trailed colorful scarves from their barrio of Santa Teresa and each in turn gripped one end of a long, heavy anchor chain. They had asked Father Cruz for his blessing to take the chain from one of the few boats still floating on the harbor.
“Is it not wrong to steal Father?” They asked with the eagerness of children. “Will we not be punished? And what if our blessed wings are taken from us?”
Though he didn’t know what to say, he had absolved them of their guilt for the theft.
“In times like these my sisters, the Lord grants his understanding upon us sinners.” He hoped those words were true as the storm of enemies bore down even closer and he winged on to meet them.
In one fist he clenched a short, sharp knife. A gift from one of the lost gang members that had trekked bleeding up the hill to die at the foot of Cristo. In a quiet moment, Father Cruz had offered the hard boy his last rights and held his hand while the light went out of troubled eyes. The blade was not particularly sharp, but it served its purpose as well as any other tool, opening holes in flesh and wing as he would ask it to do again now.
Only a few meters away now, he picked out his first target, a swarthy middle-aged man in dirty slacks
and no shirt. Chest hair served as a banner, shaven into a strange pattern of rough-edged swirls. Ugly.
The man met Cruz’s eyes and smiled. At the same time reaching into his waistband and pulling out a worn revolver. Cruz rolled to one side and dropped down below the sight of the gun.
Two loud shots.
Both missed, and then it was too late. Father Cruz let his wings pull him back up and over the man, sweeping with his knife as he barreled past. Without looking back, Cruz knew his attack had hit its mark as the enemy screamed wetly and the rich scent of blood jumped into the wind. He tucked his wings and dove again to land on the fleshy back of a fat man with wings the color of cat droppings. Muttering a prayer for forgiveness through his clenched teeth, Father Raphael gripped a handful of hair and laid the blade into the roll of flesh beneath the man’s chins. Immediately, the other’s wings went slack and he plummeted limply to shatter on the cobbles far below.
Shouts of warning rose from those camped there. Small human shapes dove out of the way as feathers burst against the smooth stones. Cruz kept moving, squinting against the horror of the battle around him and embarrassed by the bile that rose in his own throat.
Soon his arms were slick up to the elbows with the blood and sweat of Fallen. He broke his knuckles on the collarbone of a tall man whose skin was so pale that the blood vessels beneath looked like lines on a map. The man grimaced but fought back, swearing in English about the “goddamned Catholics!” and “bastard Brazilians!” His shouts faded to growls and then a sort of weak whimper as Cruz stabbed his blade again and again into spleen and liver. Black blood gurgled from the wound to coat the knife and its handle so thickly that Father Cruz lost his grip and the weapon fell away, still imbedded in the side of his attacker.
To his left and right, the priest could see that his friends were being pushed back, battered by the sheer weight of numbers. He shouted through the din.
To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1) Page 40