66
Joan remembered her many battles when she moved from life to life. This one upon the earth seemed her most violent. Her fights against humans presented one problem, yet a battle against the supernatural made warfare a gorier endeavor. They did not break and run when the situation became grim on their side.
To her left a Guardian drove his spear into a Roman monster’s chest, pinned him in place as another Guardian sliced off the Roman’s head. In turn, this same Guardian’s head jounced off his shoulders from an enemy’s blade.
As she studied the battlefield the situation for General Temeculus appeared dire, and this bode well for her. Maria pushed her company hard, and with Owen’s help, Temeculus’s troops fell into the vise. The Black Army funneled into the V as if eager to die. And die they did.
Joan swung her head from right to left. She searched for Daisy Lane. She glanced at Maria, and Maria’s sorrow filled countenance told her. Joan let loose a war cry and the army fought harder. More enemy bodies fell through the clouds to land on the earth below. Explosions rose from the fight in Denver. The army above tightened the vise to grind down Temeculus forces.
General Black kept his eyes on both battlefields, the one above him and the one on the ground to his front. The human enemy attacked in a mad mass and seemed intent to die. A-10 Warthogs destroyed the black painted tanks in the mountains. Their big guns and anti-air guns remained inaccurate, but caused casualties. The Black Army attacked without any strategy. The Stealth bombers pounded the enemy artillery pieces into silence.
“Sir, everything is okay so far,” Black said to President Wallace. He held his field glasses to his eyes and studied the battle in the skies. He spotted a black smudge against the clouds as if gnats swarmed toward the city. His stomach tensed. “Sir, check this out.”
President Wallace lifted his own glasses. “What is that, Gerald?”
General Black focused his glasses on the black cloud. He frowned once the cloud shifted towards his frontline. “Enemy cavalry. Get the troops out. Fall back into the city, fall back.”
Black Angel led her five hundred cavalry towards the frontlines. With her sword outstretched before her, she targeted the concrete and sandbag barricades. Her steed crashed through the heavy obstacles. Troops and masonry hurtled into the air in her wake as her cavalry followed close behind.
Black Angel locked her dark eyes on a frightened soldier. He fired bullets into her hellish frame. The rounds punctured her flesh and did not stop her. She plunged her sword through his chest and flung his dead body aside. Her troops followed up behind her, slaughtering their way along the streets headed into the city.
The American soldiers fought hard against the undead and their human followers. Dead bodies from both sides piled up along the entrenched lines as enemy soldiers broke into the human front.
President Wallace readied his weapon. His heart broke once his troops fled the frontline in retreat. Black pennants decorated with red pentagrams crested the American line. He stood his ground as his men made their escape. Jets started to bomb the embattled front, flying low to strafe the enemy. Several hundred human soldiers from the Black Army died. Still thousands more spilled over the line like crazed rats.
“My God,” Wallace said in a low voice. Heat from the explosions baked against his face. The tanks held their ground, firing rounds into the front entrenchments. The enemy cavalry charged forward undaunted, many leaping from their mounts to fight on foot. Some turned upon the tanks, ripping open their hatches to slaughter the tankers tucked inside.
67
Joan continued to cut her way through the horde until a huge hand seized her shoulder. The angel spun around to face Owen.
“Joan, we got a problem.”
Joan turned her eyes to Denver. Beneath her, Black Angel and her cavalry raced for the city. Her heart sank. She came so close to breaking General Temeculus’s army who started to crumble and run. She wanted to complete her vise. Black Angel’s unexpected move drew her away from the main battle.
“Maria, Juggernaut, and Owen, with me. To the second line of defense.” She turned to a captain who stood close by. “Captain Lu, stay here and continue to fight.”
Joan led her angels below. Captain Lu led the Guardians further into the fight and tore into the Black Army. The enemy started to retreat despite General Temeculus’s orders to stand and fight.
Joan rocketed to the earth and landed next to President Wallace and General Black. The two waited for all their troops to reach the second line.
President Wallace managed a tired smile. “Thank you, Joan.”
Joan nodded. “You and the general seek cover. We’ll hold them here long enough.” She glanced at the skies. To her satisfaction, the Black Army collapsed. Soon her blessed troops would turn towards the ground and stand next to the four other angels.
Joan realized Okura did not stand amongst them. The ground troops, bloodied and wounded, formed around her. Maria, Owen, and Juggernaut waited at her side as Black Angel cut a swath into the soldiers who continued to retreat. Owen readied his axes. Maria prepared her blade and Juggernaut held out his golden sword and shield.
Joan took a breath to steady her nerves. Black armored Romans headed towards their last defensive line. Outnumbered, but eager to fight until the end, the soldiers near her lifted their rifles. She cursed Okura under her breath.
“We stand here. They cannot get into the city.” Joan projected her voice for everyone to catch her words above the chaos.
Maria set her face firm. “I’ll meet you in Heaven, Joan.”
Joan smiled at her. “Not yet.”
Half a mile before the combatants, Black Angel charged her cavalry ahead. Both monsters and black clad humans armed with rifles raced towards the second line. The angels and soldiers lifted their weapons. Joan prayed and asked God to grant her the strength to fight them all.
Above her, the Guardians headed towards Joan in an attempt to reach her before Black Angel reached the line. Temeculus broken army stopped in midair, reformed, and headed towards the city.
“Steady,” Joan said.
The enemy neared the second line. Their warhorse’s hooves beat against solid ground, the earth trembled. Her lips pressed together in focus. General Temeculus fled from his army and raced for earth. Fire burned from his chariot wheels as he headed away from Highway 70 and towards the Garden of Angels.
Joan prayed for strength to defeat the combined evil they stared down. General Temeculus trapped her, knowing she would never abandon Denver while under attack. “Remember we hold them here. They get no further than us.”
In the sky, her Guardian cavalry drove into Temeculus’s army and thwarted their supportive attack. The action brought a smile to her face.
Joan braced herself. Black Angel lifted her sword and twirled the rusty blade above her head. Both undead Romans and their human comrades spread out to overlap Joan’s defensive line on the flanks. Joan raised her sword, dust rose behind the foe. She spotted their faces twisted in hate.
Black Angel sent out a war cry. Her black stallion plowed ahead. Fifty yards left, the space between the two armies shrank.
Maria sprinted from the line and into the empty space between both armies. She angled her weapon and cut the legs from underneath the beast Black Angel rode. Horse and rider plowed into the ground. Guardians and regular army troops attacked to meet the foe. They clamored upon Black Angel’s Hell born warhorse, plunging their swords and bayonets into the four-legged monster from Hell. The beast kicked and screamed. The battle rose to a heightened pitch.
Maria drove her sword into Black Angel’s back before she regained her feet. The angel withdrew her beautiful blade and hacked off the she-devil’s head. The battle turned ferocious. Romans and humans dressed in black pushed into her. They died for their weak efforts.
Owen worked his double axes fast and hard, yet he found the task to crush them almost impossible. Enemy soldiers closed in on them, a circle. They meant to destroy
the embattled fighters. “Fight all of you. Fight.”
Juggernaut did his best. He slammed his shield into bodies, cut the enemy down from all positions, but they kept on in an almost endless wave. He fought hard as the human soldiers at his side fought with the zeal and energy he thought first impossible. Soon the entire army moved into a back-to-back fight.
Joan moved her head at a high speed and killed at the same momentum. She cut down hundreds. Bodies piled at her feet. The ground became slick with blood and viscera, the air around them filled with a bloody mist. Still she fought on as the combatants slipped and fell into the red slurry and filth upon the ground.
Joan focused on the fight. She set her mind no longer on her enemy’s defeat. They needed to break and push them away. Weapons lifted and lowered, the battle’s clamor grew until a deep throb beat at her temples.
The Guardians defeated the Black Army in the sky and swarmed into the fray from above. Several thousand humans and the undead alike died from their blades. The enemy still outnumbered them despite the Guardian’s heroic efforts.
Joan cleared her mind. Fear, pain, anger, all evaporated as she cut into one body and the next like an overworked butcher. The enemy army pressed on, dark banners drew closer. The screams began to lower in decibels. Joan sent off another war cry to rally her troops, to hold off the foe and kill them all before they overran their position.
68
In heaven, the archangel Michael frowned in dismay at the battle beneath his gaze. He stood helpless as the Black Army surrounded Joan and her Guardians. His right hand tightened on his sword hilt. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the Guardians still fought hard against the enemy.
A slender figure approached God’s throne. She wore her battle armor with no wings upon her back. The figure fell to her knees before the throne.
Daisy Lane closed her eyes. “Please forgive me, Jehovah. I squandered my talents.”
Michael stepped forward and touched Daisy Lane on the shoulder. “Rise, angel.”
Daisy Lane rose to her feet. “We are fighting hard, Jehovah. But we need help, please help us.”
Michael turned to God who remained on his throne. “Please.”
Jehovah delivered Michael a slight nod.
Daisy Lane smiled. Tears spilled from her eyes, wings grew upon her back. “Thank you, Lord.”
The archangel wasted no time. He seized Daisy by the arm and pulled her from the throne. They ran down the long pearl stairs and outside God’s Palace as trumpeters called two thousand angels to gather at the muster field. Cherubim brought the two angels warhorses. They mounted the golden armored beasts and joined the two thousand cavalry angels who gathered at Heaven’s First Gate.
The archangel Michael drew his sword. The First Gate to Heaven opened. The entire detachment poured from the gates like white thunderheads. They charged their warhorses from Heaven. Weapons and armor shimmered from the bright sun.
Daisy Lane rode next to Michael. She took in his strong determined face as he held his golden sword out before him. His silk robes flowed and rippled. Their warhorses galloped ahead tough and fearless. The mounts wide nostrils snorted in the cool air. Their hooves became a blur as the detachment rode towards the earth like eagles.
Michael lifted his blade. “Kill them all.”
Daisy Lane unsheathed her sword once they broke from the clouds and neared the two fighting armies. Joan continued to fight hard among silver armored bodies, surrounded by horrors dressed in black. The angelic detachment fell upon the black clad army. Horse archers fired their golden arrows into the black swarm, the cavalry cut into the enemy with their silver blades. Michael fought with a determined gusto until he routed the enemy.
Joan paused in awe. Michael thundered from Heaven with his angels. Elation swept through her once she spotted Daisy Lane next to him. With sword in hand, Daisy hacked into the defeated enemy mob.
The archangel Michael spun his massive steed and rode up to Joan. He pointed his bloody sword at her. “We’ll handle this rabble, Joan of Heaven. Stop the gate from opening. Do this now and alone to atone for me being here.”
Joan spread her white wings from her back. Her heart raced hard in her chest at Michael’s admonishment. She took to the air with two powerful flaps. Below her, the Black Army scattered in confusion, fleeing west into the Rockies. The Screamers tried to attack, but they fell from the golden bolts delivered by the mounted archers. Her eyes took in the entire battlefield littered with bodies from both sides.
The grim scene filled her heart with grief when she spotted several hundred silver gleams amongst the dead. She commended the Guardians for their sacrifice. One more fight loomed ahead.
69
Joan flew on until she left the battlefield covered in death. To her front sat the Rocky Mountains, beyond the Rockies lay the flat plains to the west. Below her dust and black smoke rose into the air in thick plumes. Scattered fires from destroyed vehicles burned as the Black Army retreated through the mountains in their mad escape from Michael’s onslaught.
Joan turned her mind towards the door and tried not to think whether she achieved a victory against the Black Army. A heavier challenge lay before her with no chance of rescue if she failed. She pumped her wings until she arrived at the Garden of Angels.
She lighted on the highest sandstone seats. The two stone monoliths rose to either side like silent sentinels. The hole she opened in the stage waited for her arrival. She readied her sword and descended the amphitheater seats. The sun eased higher into the sky and drenched the area in red light.
Her eyes took in every shadow hidden behind rocks and sage bushes. The horrific tumult from battle no longer grated against her ears. Smoke and cordite blew its infamous stench from the east and filled her nostrils.
Joan folded her wings upon her back. The sun baked the blood and flesh stuck to her armor into a horrid crust. The reek became unbearable and made her nose water. She took the steps as if she traversed a minefield while scanning the hole like a wary tiger.
The theater sat in silence, the dark opening in the ground called out to her with its mysteries. Okura’s betrayal baffled her.
Joan stopped at the hole and peered into the dreaded darkness. Tiny rocks fell into the flat blackness beneath her feet, clacking against the tight walls she prepared to face. Her stomach knotted as she confronted the void. Time did not wait. Joan spread her wings and dropped into the abyss.
The angel of war experienced a mile long plunge. She fell through sticky cobwebs and into darkness blacker than tar. Her outstretched wings struck an occasional rock as she negotiated her way into the hole. Her angel sight kept the world bright around her.
She floated down the drop, and near the end, the hole opened to a massive cavern packed with stalagmites, stalactites and jagged ledges. Below this sat a pit with a stone floor and beyond the floor sat the door to Hell.
Joan moved like a ghost. She landed upon a rock high above the cavern floor. She crept forward, easing through the crags until she spotted three figures grouped near the thirty-foot tall door made from ironwood. The entire cavern glowed blood red from lit torches lined along the ancient walls.
The angel fixed her brown eyes on the three dwarfed by the colossal door. General Temeculus hovered over Lucia who remained on her knees. Okura stood behind her with his sword drawn.
Okura gazed at the huge general. Fear filled him as the Key remained silent. Okura wanted his family. He wanted to hold his wife and son again. Lucifer promised to deliver his family in exchange for the Key.
“Here she is.” He pointed his blood-encrusted sword at the girl. “All she needs to do is sing a tune and your door opens, general.”
General Temeculus regarded the Key with his cold red eyes. He blinked and turned his attention to Okura. “You’re a fallen angel now, Okura.”
“I don’t care. All I want is my family, even if I must burn down the gates of Heaven to find them.”
The general rem
oved his helmet. He tightened his eyes, gritted his teeth and strained. Within seconds, two black horns pushed from his forehead. “You are fallen for betraying God, and that oath you took so many years ago.”
Okura stared at the door. A deep emptiness filled him. His heart ached for his family. “My love for my family burns brighter than the flames of Hell.”
“Your family is dead, Okura. Forget them and join us.” The general lifted a huge hand covered in a black armored glove. “We are your family now.”
Okura turned to the Key. Pain and sadness hung in his eyes. “Sing little one, get this done so we can start the Apocalypse.”
The general laughed, his heavy voice boomed and echoed throughout the cavern. “Sing or I’ll hack you to pieces.”
70
Joan wanted to stop their drivel. However, an almost cold curiosity kept her riveted in place. The Key sat silent between the two monsters. Lucia’s tiny shoulders trembled before a delicate note rose from her throat. The tone arrived soft and hesitant at first. The harsh torch fires became a soft bloom within the chamber once her first lines played into the tepid air.
Joan’s eyes flicked to the door as the Key started to sing. The girl’s voice mesmerized her. Even the general and Okura paused their hateful gibberish. The delicious tune lifted into the air, high and tender, sprayed with pastel colors within the notes.
The song poured from Lucia’s voice like cream. The notes rose, lowered, and melted the tension-clogged air. Her song infused the musty chamber with roses and sugar-drenched peaches. The notes, too delicious to open such a horrible door, did its job.
The door cracked.
Joan swallowed. A throb rose in her lower belly and trembled to the soft spot between her thighs. A cold voice whispered in her ear. She wondered at Hell charging from its pit and upon the planet earth. Her mouth gaped open. The Key’s tender song broached the door another foot.
Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) Page 27