Fourteen Angels in all had come. To her surprise, none of the Monks had the courage to disobey Bishop and the mysterious superiors that he took orders from.
So far none of them had been lost.
Today’s attack had seen a Halo appear over the head of one tall Angel. A man named Leggatt. He survived the rest of the battle, despite sustaining several gunshot wounds.
Now he waited.
The ring of light cast its terrible glow all around as he flexed and un-flexed his broad white wings with greenish speckles. Nobody disturbed him.
The Angels were camped in an abandoned boxing gym on the seedy northwest side of Las Vegas.
Whoever the former owner had been had thought enough to weld the locks onto the iron grate doors, but Scott had easily torn the whole mess away from the front of the building.
Now they sat silently and waited for the more grievous of the day’s wounds to heal.
Each of them brooded, staring at the shadows created by Leggatt’s halo in the musty space between hanging punching bags and canvas-floored rings.
Scott Fitzpatrick sat on a stool that looked much too small for him.
June dug into his ample shoulder muscle with a pair of tweezers in search of a stubborn bullet. Scott winced, more at the sound caused by her rough surgery than the actual pain of it.
Even their miraculous healing powers had a negative side. Any bullet or foreign object that found itself embedded in Angel flesh had to be removed quickly, or it would simply be grown over. While infection wasn’t a danger, one could only carry so much shrapnel around inside before it started to impede joint movement.
Scott’s pale eyes met Serena’s and he spoke.
“We have to call in, Serena.” He sounded tired. “There are just too many. It was stupid for us to come alone.”
It was June, rather than Serena, who responded.
“It was stupid for the Monks not to come with us!”
Scott sighed with just a little less patience than usual.
“I agree with you, but we need their help if we’re going to free Aaron. If that means we have to beg, or bribe, or agree to some of Bishop’s conditions, then so be it.”
June pouted, but didn’t protest. Her rummaging through his deltoid, Serena noted, got a bit sloppier.
“I’ll promise Bishop whatever he wants, as long as he can help us immediately.”
Serena had nothing to say. She felt weak, ashamed, and worried for Aaron. It had taken them almost half of a day to fly, using their bare wings and fighting the whole way.
No black-ops helicopters, or even trucks, had been surrendered by the apologetic Monks.
Two more days of trying to pinpoint weaknesses in the tower defenses, then a failed attempt to get in through the eastern grand entrance which seemed to have the laziest of the mercenaries guarding it.
The very next day they had tried again, flying high and out of range of the ground forces. June had suggested they coat their wings with the plentiful ash of burnt-out Vegas to make it harder to distinguish them from the Possessed, at least from far away.
For some reason the soot would not stick to their feathers. Neither would used motor oil. The black and greasy brown slid right off, not even staining the perfect white or the brilliant colors underneath.
Instead they had opted to attack at mid-day, figuring the blinding sun would be high. So from the courtyards and parking structures below at least, they would appear only as silhouettes.
At first that plan had worked.
High up the tower many, many balconies bristled with mercenary guns. Air-space was patrolled by a small army of the dark Fallen.
Eventually the security force identified them and turned back their best efforts.
Only hours ago, Serena had followed Scott and the others through an underground parking structure. A huge risk, because the low ceilings of the closed space limited the advantage of their powerful flight. They had only made it as far as the maintenance tunnels before being repelled.
Still a long way from success.
Hard-pressed to come up with a new plan that made sense, and sobered by the certainty that one of their number would soon die, Serena could only wait for what Bishop had to say.
June finally found the slug inside Scott’s muscle and pulled it free with a wet sliding sound.
Blood gushed momentarily, then became thick. Eventually it clotted completely and the wound sealed itself.
Her patient rose to his full intimidating height and mumbled something about finding the comm-set before heading toward a locker room.
Mirrors on all four walls reflected his impressive musculature back and forth to one another in infinite conversation. Scott cast looks around at everyone as he pushed his broad shoulders through the gaps between gym equipment. He refused to look at Leggatt.
He feels guilty.
Scott had always been very protective, but since his transformation it was taken to a whole new level. He had grown increasingly somber and serious. The good nature and easy humor of their shared past was now rare from the huge man.
Serena grieved for the loss.
June Olcontra slumped down beside her, wiping Scott’s blood off of her fingers with a damp towel. The young Angel was a bit of a curiosity, with her asymmetrical plumage and almost comic rudeness. Serena liked her.
“Don’t worry.” June said. “We’ll get him out.” She tucked her hair behind her ears as she glanced around the room, an uncharacteristically feminine gesture.
Serena sighed, thinking of Danny.
“I’m sure we will. I just hope it’s not too late.” The prospect was almost too heavy to ponder.
“No. It won’t be.” June tried to sound nonchalant. “it’s only been what? Eight days?”
“Only?” Serena tried to keep the harshness from her voice. “If you had seen what this woman -this witch- can do, you might be just as scared as me. She cleared out a whole town in less time than that.”
June’s eyes clouded for a moment, then she shrugged. “I guess you know better than I do, but if even half of the stories the Monks tell about Aaron are true.. I mean, he’s been through hell before right?”
Serena looked into June’s eyes, freckled brown, almost gold in the light of Leggatt’s halo.
“Yes, he has.” Serena was surprised by the thickness in her throat. “But it killed him. When he came back from Argentina, He was not the same. He was broken somehow… Not physically. In that sense, he was lucky. No damaged lungs, no serious wounds. But his mind, or his heart, maybe his whole soul. They were just sort of.. Empty.”
June’s brow furrowed sympathetically. She looked as though she wanted say something, but thought better of it and simply listened.
“The way he was before the Carneguerra..” Serena went on. “You should have seen him. How he looked at Danny and me every day. The way he made everyone laugh..” Her tone changed, rising wistfully as if ready to launch a story. An epic. Or a romance.
“He would come home the days when I was pregnant and pick me up. Carry me around like I weighed nothing, fat as I was.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the thought. “After Danny was born I would find the two of them asleep. Our baby boy drooling on his chest. They would both be smiling. It was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. They napped together like that for a year But I never took pictures because I wanted that one all to myself.” She stopped herself. “.. he was really something.”
June reached out and brushed the tears off of Serena’s cheeks.
Embarrassed, the Angel backpedaled, her voice hardening a bit.
“Like I said June, that Aaron Dayne never came back from Argentina. It took him almost four years to get back to normal, but still, not quite what he was once.” She rubbed the heels of her hands hard into her eyes, mad at herself.
She hadn’t cried over Aaron Dayne in years.
June wore a sort of mournful look that Serena could not quite read.
Rather than pry further, the young Angel
changed the subject.
“How are your arms?”
Serena had almost forgotten those too. The odd sort of buzzing sensation in her bones had all but ceased. Still, her hands wouldn’t fully cooperate when she tried to flex and extend her fingers. Meaning the muscles and tendons displaced by the breakage were not totally healthy.
Around the room, the same scenario played out beneath skin of all different colors.
June left Serena’s side to check on the others.
Her tough exterior did little to fool the golden-haired Angel. This girl cared about all of them. About Aaron too, for whatever reason. The fearless June even struck up a conversation with Leggatt. Though his shining Halo left no doubt that was doomed to die, even he managed a smile.
Scott eclipsed his way back into the room a few minutes later.
To Serena’s surprise, he was buzzing with energy, almost smiling. When he spoke, people tended to listen. Thankfully, for once, news was good.
“I was able to get through to Salt Lake. Even spoke with Bishop directly. And a KC Archbishop as well. They are coming to help us.”
The waiting Angels voiced their approval, even Leggatt. Serena wanted details.
“When?”
“They are waiting on Bluejean and the Swans to get back from Brazil, but it sounds like no later than tomorrow night.”
Relief tingled through Serena from toes to ponytail. It was short-lived, as she reminded herself of the gravity of their predicament. Extracting Aaron would not be easy, even with help.
He might already be dead.
She chased the unthinkable notion out of her head before it could find a place to roost.
“How many?”
Scott’s marble face split into a wide grin.
“All of them, Serena. Every damned one of them.”
June cursed joyfully. Some of the others smiled or slapped hands. Leggatt beat his wings, stirring dust from the rafters. It fluttered down like snow in the weird light of his halo.
“The ’Knights are staging an all-out assault on Babel. Looking to stop Valdez from rallying any more support.” Scott continued, and smiled a hungry smile, white teeth against white skin. “All of them. And they are bringing the whole shop.”
As suddenly as it had appeared, the smile faded. Replaced by a frown so deep it didn’t quite fit on his face.
From his brooding corner, Leggatt sprang suddenly to his feet.
“Get down!!!!” he warned…..
His shout hadn’t even stopped echoing when the mirrors of the gym’s west wall shattered into a billion starlight pieces.
Shards rained down in a heavy sheet to reveal a newly opened door, a rough hole with edges blackened by explosives. Through the cavity, a pair of men pushed into the gym. In the hands of one, a submachine gun began to chatter.
The other was tall and lean, spreading wings of black and blue like a magpie’s.
He leapt toward the nearest Angel, a thick-thighed black woman named Tyna from Denver who had found her way to Utah after her family had been killed in riots.
Behind them, many more pressed to enter the gym.
Ambush.
How had they gotten so close undetected? Usually the Angels, with their heightened senses, could hear or smell or see the enemy coming. The Possessed and their mercenaries were learning, getting better.
That must be why the Sleepless Knights had been given the go-ahead to attack Babel. The enemy was becoming more meticulous, organized, and lethal.
That, Serena knew, was the doing of Hunter Valdez.
The room filled with violence, interrupting her train of thought.
Bullets pinged off of the weight racks and thudded heavily into punching bags as more and more of Valdez’s Fallen and their hired guns poured into the room.
Scott began sliding weighted iron plates off of their bars and throwing them like Frisbees at the inrushing attackers.
The first one to strike an attacker nearly took the man’s head off.
When the plates ran out he javelined the empty bars.
The projectiles made alien humming sounds as they sailed impossibly fast through the hot air of the gym. Sickening sounds of cracking bone and crushing meat issued forth whenever they met their target. Leggat followed suit, tipping a whole exercise cage into the gap made by the explosion. Men tripped and fell, slicing their palms on the glass from the broken mirrors. The light of the Angel’s Halo danced off of the tiny shards in a million angles, giving an almost festive glow to the bloodbath.
Serena did her part, kicking and kneeing her way into the body-clogged gap where a wall should be. She hoped that her arms would heal completely before things got any worse.
The Angels met the enemy at the point of attack, their wings and muscles filling the room from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
They waded into the attackers fearlessly, but not blindly.
Smarter to fight in close quarters, where their divinely strong hands only had to fight blades and flesh, rather than bullets.
Leggatt fought like a dervish, as haloed Angels always did. His strobe-like glow burned brighter and brighter, nearing the end.
Gouts of blood sprang forth from several bullet wounds, but served only to infuriate him. He disappeared under a boil of attackers momentarily. When he emerged, his right arm twisted behind him at a nauseating angle. Still he fought on, roaring and sweating against the mercenaries and Possessed.
The Halo’s light intensified even more, became almost blinding.
Suddenly, a hefty man carrying a fat revolver stood up from where he’d slid and pressed the gun behind Leggat’s ear.
Not even Angelic reflexes were fast enough.
A deafening shot sounded, and the light went out.
Oh God!
A relative hush blanketed the raucous scene at the snuffing out of such a spectacular energy.
In the semi darkness, Serena could see that Scott and two others had pushed more equipment into the jagged hole, blocking those that still tried to enter. They pushed their rifles and handguns in through the gaps and fired blindly. Tufts of mostly feather joined the dust and blood in the air.
Serena threw her shoulder into a squat rack and tipped it over, adding to the jumble of iron.
The temporary barrier bought them time.
Time enough to flee, going out the way they had come.
Serena didn’t doubt that there would be more of the Fallen there, but the attack had been focused here. Whatever awaited them at the actual door, they would overcome.
They had to.
Salvation was on the horizon. The cavalry had been called in. If only they could survive until then.
She followed the others, past the shredded boxing rings and row upon row of bullet-ridden fitness equipment.
Tears welled up as she stepped over Leggatt’s half-headless body.
His great wings spread in a ‘V’ over the bloodstained floor, overlapping bodies and mixing with the darker plumage of the Fallen. The tableau brought to mind a classical painting Serena had acquired for her former employer’s extensive collection, The Death of Icarus. Though here, surrounded by the sounds of violence, the tragic beauty was absent. Here the death was real. Here the death stank and created slick messes on the floor.
The makeshift barrier rattled as encroaching enemies pushed against it. It would not hold for long.
Scott was already through the front door, the rest of their ragtag Angel band close on his heels. Serena piled out into the parking lot last, gritting her teeth against the gunfire that was sure to greet them. She squinted against the sunlight and gasped at what she saw. Empty blacktop, save for a shockingly thin reinforcement of three Possessed, none of their mercenaries.
The trio stood spaced evenly apart, as though they’d stretched wingtip to wingtip and shuffled about until they got the spacing just right. All three had black plumage with a stripe of green, mallard green. Despite the sameness of their wings, they bore no other resemblance. One app
eared to be Hispanic and two were white. One fat and short, the other was totally unremarkable.
The man at center pulled something that looked like an egg from his pocket and shattered it on the asphalt.
It was an egg. Instead of a yellow yoke and transparent slime, a rotten-looking mess splashed out.
Immediately the three began shouting rhythmically, in an unfamiliar language that Serena had heard once before.
It dizzied her violently.
Beside her, an Angel named Keith wretched.
The rubbery feeling in her forearms and wrists that marked the healing of tissue turned instead to a hideous ache. The same, she thought, she might feel if she had broken both of her arms before the change.
The three Possessed shouted louder.
Two, now four, of the Angels fell to the ground. Their beautiful wings folded and disappeared.
All of them unconscious.
Serena herself was having a hard time balancing. The weird rhythm of the three stole her equilibrium and grew louder, pulsing in the parking lot to become something almost tangible.
Another of the Angels fell to his knees and clutched at his ears, screaming.
She clamped her eyes shut to stop the world from spinning.
Seconds stretched, becoming minutes, days of confusion.
Underneath the sick bloom of noise in her brain, she heard something else. A quick succession of thumps, then an exhalation. A gasp?
The chanting stopped.
As quickly as her disorientation had set in, it left her.
Serena opened her eyes and found herself leaning against the exterior wall of the gym. Blood ran from her nose, but other than that, she was fine. She flexed her wings experimentally. Still there. All around, the others pulled themselves up from where they’d fallen.
June was standing over a heap that only moments before had been three men with black and green wings.
The strange young Angel looked around in confusion at the others.
“What the hell just happened?” she pressed. Nobody answered her. They were all too busy shaking the cobwebs from their own heads, a few trying to rouse the unconscious.
To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1) Page 44