“Do not forget who has been feeding you and your desperate families these last months. Do not forget who has given you protection and a future. Follow the orders you have been given, and tonight we will celebrate together.”
Koontz had done a satisfactory job of telling the makeshift army what was expected of it.
As an afterthought, Valdez pressed another button on the intercom.
“Mr. Simmons?” he said. “I will expect more of these lovely fried chickens in the Cavern Suite before lunchtime.”
“Um… Of.. Of course, sir. Mr. Valdez sir.” came the metallic reply from Simmons, the sous chef. Receiving orders directly from the top was a rarity.
“I’m afraid Mr. Glaus has had an accident.” Valdez sighed into the com. “congratulations on the promotion. Extra crispy, Mr. Simmons.”
Las Vegas, Nevada
“…and when we came out of the door, we found the first wave flying in overhead. So I started running back to join.”
Aaron finished explaining.
“Glad we found you.” the tall Monk sharpshooter sitting across from him blurbed back “You‘re lucky you didn‘t get killed, dressed like that.” Aaron knew this Monk well, one of the few whose actual name he had learned. Rossborough.
The sniper had spotted him waving on the fairway of the second hole and urged the chopper pilot to set down and pick him up.
True to form, the Frankensteinian Monk didn’t so much as crack a smile for his comrade. Now they were airborne again and moving fast toward Babel, climbing rapidly on a trajectory aimed for the uppermost levels of the tower.
Aaron had just finished relaying the abridged version of his torture and escape while sucking down ration-gels and water.
Now the sharpshooter spoke into his shoulder radio, apprising the rest of the Monks of the situation.
“Redskin has been found and secured. Repeat, SK operative Redskin is alive and well.” He offered Aaron a thumbs-up to indicate that the news was well-received.
“Redskin confirms that Priority Target Brown is deceased. Confirmed Kill on Priority Target Brown.” Another unenthusiastic thumbs-up. “Additional confirmed ingress point at first tee box on the golf course. Unguarded.” He pulled a field map from his chest pocket and read off coordinates.
Efficient
Aaron couldn’t hear much over the thunder of the helo’s spinning blades, but he could imagine the radio chatter that followed up Rossborough’s transmission. Metallic voices giving orders to re-organize and adjust plans based on the new information. After listening a minute, the lanky Monk turned back to Aaron.
“Good news, the Heater you killed was near the top of our most-wanted list. Same guy that killed the parents of Serena Dayne Angel. Used to be Hunter Valdez’s personal bodyguard.”
Aaron was slightly stunned, even if his face didn’t show it. The night Serena had dropped out of the sky in Salt Lake City, he hadn’t gotten a close look at her attacker.
Still, there was little satisfaction in it. He had executed the man in cold blood.
Cold, necessary, blood.
Reminded of home, he asked. “Where is Danny? My son Danny?” For the briefest moment, a tight knot of panic stitched in his chest.
“Safe at home. The day you were captured, he and the dogs made it home from the park without incident. He even invited the Monks in for supper.”
Aaron blew a relieved sigh. His boy would be fine in the capable hands of Collie and ‘Uncle Crazy’.
“What about Serena? Where is she now?”
“More good news. We are assigned to the same attack formation. Exodus Group.” He gestured with a long arm toward the other men in the helicopter. “This bunch is officially attached to Rafael Cruz Angel, a Brazilian priest. He is her partner in this mission. We should regain visual contact with both of them momentarily”
Aaron was familiar enough with KC procedure to know that changing Angel assignments was out of the ordinary. The sniper was one of Scott Fitzpatrick’s team. At least he was supposed to be.
The normally un-talkative gunman must have read the question on Aaron’s face, because he explained.
“Exodus Group’s primary objective is to kill Hunter Valdez. Only the most experienced Monks and Deacons were selected.” His eyes hooded almost imperceptibly. “Only those of us with the highest number of confirmed kills.”
It made sense to Aaron’s military brain.
“So we are following her? Them?”
Rossborough nodded slightly.
“Affirmative. But we are a bit behind.” Finally, the faintest of smiles pulled up the corners of his serious mouth. These stoic men were happy to be staging the final grand assault..
“We had to make a stop to pick up a straggler.”
Las Vegas, Nevada
“We’ve been reassigned!” Scott shouted at June as the two of them sliced through the air. The dense flock of Angels had dispersed some, dividing in accordance with the carefully laid plans of the Knights.
“What?!” she questioned back, above the racket of approaching helicopters and gunfire below.
Scott pointed a thick white finger at his own ear, where a small communicator nested.
“Brown is already dead! Aaron killed him!”
“Aaron?” The news was almost too good. “Aaron Dayne?”
“Yes! Our Deacon just relayed me the news. He escaped with the help of an Angel who disappeared after the first assault on Babel. This Deacon knew him.”
June hovered before him, waiting for more information.
“So where do we go now?”
Scott frowned, irritated that the news he was about to deliver was exactly what she wanted hear.
“We go with Serena and Cruz. We help them kill Valdez.”
June’s smile was radiant. The kind of smile meant for weddings or birthdays.
Not for war.
Shocks of copper and blue met and parted, met and parted, as she hurtled at breakneck speed through the thinning air traffic.
Exodus Group was only seconds from reaching the point of attack. Scott watched the Possessed coming off of the tower to meet them in bunches, like a great dog shedding fleas.
He and June were perhaps two hundred yards behind Serena and Cruz, a distance the young Angel was trying to make up as quickly as possible.
“June, slow down!” he called after her.
She ignored him, chewing empty airspace with all of the vigor her considerably undersized wingspan would allow her.
He moved to follow and caught up easily. Despite his bulk, Scott was known for being one of the swiftest Angels in flight. Aside from the Swans, few could match him in any physical regard. His granite-slab hands had crushed the life out of more Fallen than virtually every Angel on the wing in this morning assault.
Together, the odd pair barreled skyward, to the high balconies of the tower.
Bright Nevada sun burnt down on their flashing feathers, lighting up what promised to be an ugly morning.
Great multitudes of the enemy bore down on them bearing an assortment of weapons. Knives, guns, chains, and every manner of blunt instrument.
Monks in the trailing helicopters began unloading their rifles, scoring kill shots more often than not. Cordite added a harsh stench to the abused air.
The Possessed came on like a cloud of flies. Every possible angle of attack or escape soon filled with dark wings and sweating skin. Scott seized June by the wrist and stared into her enraged face. Their wings beat against one another, fighting for the stirring breezes.
“June! We stay together. You hear me? We fight together!”
Neither of them liked the arrangement they’d been forced to swallow by the KC brass, but now was no time for arguments.
Her golden eyes softened just a bit and she nodded tersely. For now, they needed one another.
“Stay close to the choppers.” She offered.
He let go of her arm just as the first of the Fallen reached them. Scott rolled to one side and let t
he point man hurtle past before snagging the man by his wing and kicking him in the back of the head. Bone gave way.
Another barreled into him from his left, clamping thick tattooed arms around his waist. Teeth sunk into his shoulder.
The scent of Angel blood jumped into the already-stinking air.
Together the pair tumbled earthward as their wings tangled together for a brief second.
Scott threw his feathers wide to shake off his attacker. Whirling, he crunched a fierce uppercut into the man’s chin.
It was enough.
Not far away above him, June engaged with two of the enemy.
One of the Fallen hung on wings of deep crimson. Sunlight flamed strangely on his red plumage. June spiraled between them, slicing across Red Wing’s belly with a knife Scott hadn’t noticed her carrying. Entrails spilled through his shirt as gravity pulled the wound open. He screamed in pain only briefly before she dipped beneath his feet and came up at his back to slit the wailing throat. Mercifully, agonized screams hushed to a mute gurgle.
Wasting no time, June spun his limp form away to collide with the other Fallen. The maneuver bought her just enough time to sink the blade twice into her next attacker’s side. He grimaced, but didn’t falter, swinging for her pretty face with a closed fist. She caught the blow on her shoulder instead, countering with a knee to the groin. Still, the Fallen registered no pain.
Her attacker reared one fist back to swing again.
Before the blow could land, a neat red hole appeared above his right ear, courteous of some unseen Monk. The tiniest fraction of a second later a geyser of bone and brain bloomed from the other side of his skull.
No time to acknowledge the small victory.
More of them came.
Many more.
Scott fought, as he always did, with preternatural focus and power. Almost immediately, he noticed a difference in the way the enemy attacked. The Fallen engaged him and the other Angels in small groups or pairs, even one-on-one. Rather than piling on and overwhelming to take full advantage of their superior numbers, the mad horde picked and poked.
What disturbed him the most was the way that so many flew past; ignoring him, June, and the other Angels completely.
A few swarmed under the choppers, or tried to smash headlong into the open bays where the soldiers jerked from one target to another.
Most simply dodged and ducked their way through the combat zone and past the helicopters. Abandoning Babel, they carried their guns and knives and bats with them into the glowering city.
Abandoning Babel?
Scott Fitzpatrick cursed his slow wits when the realization hit him.
Heading into the city.
The Sleepless Knights were not the only ones who had come up with a plan.
Las Vegas, Nevada
The blood coating his hands was warm and fresh, smelling thickly of salt and metal, but it wasn’t enough.
Hunter Valdez reached out again, praying an ugly prayer the Bruja had taught him as he did.
In the clutch of plumage and muscled flesh high above the grounds of Babel, his fingers closed on a shock of hair. He wrenched hard, yanking a young caramel-skinned Angel out of the fray. Wrapping his free arm around the boy’s neck, he twisted viciously. Thick black curls came away in his fist, bringing slippery chunks of scalp with it.
Valdez whispered something again and the flesh near the fresh wounds started peeling back, drawing itself away from the skull and interstitial muscles.
Howling in pain, the Angel struck out with a knee. It caught Valdez square in the midsection, forcing the air from him in a whoosh. Further enraged, he ripped at the other man’s eyes, forcing burning-hot fingers past lashes and lids into the orbitals.
Blinded, the young Angel clutched at his face.
Skin continued to peel off of his scalp and down the back of the Angel’s neck like gruesome strips of leather. For a breath, Hunter Valdez admired his own handiwork. It took a great deal of skill to cause an Angel such suffering. Even as he watched, a thin circular strip of light, like a crown, appeared above the Angel’s head. The blinded boy must have sensed it, because his face changed from a grimace of agony to take on an altogether different look. One of calm acceptance. A profound expression of peace that agonized his attacker.
The dying Angel reached tentatively forward as violence raged on around him, trying to find Valdez by touch, rather than sight. A brief second later he was tumbling toward the courtyards far below, minus the better portion of his trachea and Adam’s apple. Hunter clutched the cartilaginous tissue in his fist for a breath before casting it after the body. As suddenly as it had appeared, the halo was snuffed out.
More.
Babel’s creator and master muttered again to himself and tucked his coal-black wings for a second, dropping onto the back of a woman with a narrow stripe of robin’s-egg blue adorning her brilliant white feathers. He bit down on the back of her neck to tear away the flesh, then spat into the open wound. Immediately, the Angel started to seize. Her wings stopped beating, hanging instead like wet rags as her body bucked and twitched in mid-air. She fell awkwardly, head over heels, caroming off of other Heaters and Angels as she went.
Valdez spat again, not venom this time, but to rid himself of the vile taste it left his mouth. The Bruja’s ’spider bite’ trick was effective, but it took some getting used to.
Whirling back toward the tower, he decided that the taste of rotten meat in his mouth was not worth the poisoning effect. The Bruja had taught him other ways of besting the Angels.
The massed Demons from his tower were doing just as he and Koontz demanded, distracting the Angels and scoring a few casualties while the bulk of the force winged beyond the invaders and into the city.
Already the tactic was working.
Scores of Angels did an about-face, moving to pursue the loosed Possessed. Their Monks followed like eager pets, bullets ricocheting off of their helicopters from the rifles of tower guards.
Valdez swooped tantalizingly close to the whirring blades of one chopper. Abused torrents of air pushed at his feathers. The danger thrilled him.
He ducked around the reach of the rotors and propelled himself straight into the bay, where four of the black-clad soldiers sat in their gunner harnesses, calmly cycling through targets and knocking his army from the sky.
He sang another of the Bruja’s twisted songs, and watched as their shocked faces changed to masks of fury. Fury not directed at him, but at one another. A square of machine gun fire roared, with Hunter Valdez crouched smiling at its center, clasping his wings tight to his sides to avoid losing any of his glossy black feathers to the 7.62 millimeter rounds.
After the short burst, all four of the Monks hung loosely in their straps, necks and faces rendered unrecognizable by friendly fire. Looking back to see the carnage, the chopper pilot drew a pistol and turned away from the toggle. Valdez gripped his wrist and wrenched backward until bones gave way. The soldier didn’t scream, but started praying instead. Immediately Valdez felt his adrenaline surge ebb.
The Bruja had warned him of this.
“You must silence any prayers quickly” She had told him. “For some reason those little displays of false faith have a way of interrupting our strength.”
The witchdoctors of his childhood had displayed the same sort of aversion.
Turning the gun over so that its cold eye stared the pilot straight in the face, Valdez pulled the trigger.
The already-tilting chopper shuddered as the Monk’s feet went limp on the controls.
Hunter leapt clear and watched the unmanned helicopter descend, cutting a swath through the fighting masses of Angels and Fallen as it went.
He laughed aloud, pleased with the carnage of his own creation. The feeling of liberation at getting one’s hands dirty came as a bit of a surprise, causing him to feel a pang of jealousy at all of the many times he’d left grunt work for Brown to handle.
Another Angel came barreling at him from a
bove, striking a glancing blow to his temple with some blunt object. Cursing, he moved to pursue the fast-flying nuisance, but a group of his own had already set upon the offender like a pack of hyenas.
From within the boil of limbs and wings, Valdez’s eye caught the satisfying glow of a Halo.
Another greasy smile crawled its way across his handsome face.
He was about to move to his next target when from behind him, a voice called out a name he hadn’t heard in a very long time.
Barely audible above the din, it still made his heart jump.
Who knows that name?
His own name. His real name. The one his mother had given him.
“Fabiano Dos Santos!” the voice called again.
He wheeled around to face the source and found himself looking at two grim faces.
One of them he had expected -even hoped- to see on this day.
Her hair shone golden even through the coating blood and slickness of sweat. The baleful glare was new, something he’d certainly never seen while he was signing her paychecks.
Serena Dayne. Unmistakable.
The other face was one he hadn’t seen for many, many years. Even aged, this visage was perhaps even more familiar than the former secretary.
Angelic manifestation had clearly restored burn-damaged features, making him look more like the Rafael Cruz that Fabiano Dos Santos used to bully on the streets of Rio. Not quite so boyish and pretty, but the same man, certainly.
The last time Hunter had seen that face, it was half covered in gauze and burn jelly, streaked with tears of impotent rage as Valdez held him down in his hospital bed and Brown drew a blade across the fragile throat, just deep enough to let him know what would happen if he talked. So many years ago, but a vivid memory nonetheless. Last Valdez had heard, this man had eked out a pathetic existence groveling before the Pope in an antiquated Church that the world no longer paid attention to.
The priest shouted again.
“Fabiano Dos Santos!” for the third time. Now in their native Portuguese. “It is time that you pay for your sins!”
To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1) Page 52