Michael and Patrick didn’t wait for Colm’s order to retaliate. They swung around and flanked Seamus and Liam. Patrick fired, then stepped back to reload while Seamus and Liam fired.
Sweat soaked Colm’s face, neck, chest, and back. Stray locks of hair stuck to his cheeks and forehead. The angels’ desperation, as they tried to defend themselves, was the force that fed his mania, and he threw his arms outward and channeled his power into tight beams of light. He was deaf to Seamus’ shouts.
“They’re purposely firin’ high!” Seamus shouted at the others. “Them demons ain’t tryin’ to kill us!”
Patrick’s blue aura brightened in distress. He ripped the ramrod out of the barrel of his musket and moved closer to Seamus. “I think they’re baitin’ Colm! I tried to—”
“FUCK!” Michael screamed.
Colm channeled his power. At the same time, Jeremiah, Joseph, and the company of colonials surged through the woods from the east.
Seamus, Patrick, and Liam allowed their eyes to dart toward Michael for a split second.
“FUCK! STOP HIM!” Michael screamed. If Colm released his channeled power, the woods would be annihilated along with every living thing that existed there. Michael lunged at his brother and swung his fists down on Colm’s outstretched arms. “NO, COLM! YA WILL KILL THEM! JOSEPH AND JEREMIAH ARE HERE!”
Jeremiah, Joseph, Gordon, Abe, Gideon, Rufus, and the others in the company took cover behind trees and brush. They experienced the effects of the static electricity charged air. Every strand of hair unsecured by a queue or ponytail stuck to their foreheads, cheeks, and the back of their necks. The demons turned and volleyed into the woods. The rebels returned fire.
Colm neither felt the blows to his arms nor heard Michael’s warning.
Michael shoved Colm. “YA ARE GOING TO KILL THEM!”
Seamus sprung at Colm and slapped his face.
Colm snapped out of his trance-like concentration. He heard Michael’s warning: “JEREMIAH AND JOSEPH ARE HERE! YA ARE GOING TO KILL THEM!”
Through the haze of gun smoke, Colm saw the truth. Henry released his minions, and in doing so, laid a course for Colm to inadvertently kill Joseph and Jeremiah while defending his men. But that failed; therefore, Henry’s going to use my love for Joseph and Michael as a pawn in his hideous game. He’s going to make me choose between them. The event was inevitable. The logistics were indeterminate.
Colm’s epiphany had distracted him from the battle between the rebels and the demons. The air was so heavy with black gunpowder that all Colm saw was the blaze of flint and powder, and the orange flash of dying demons.
He ran into the thick haze to find the angels and stumbled over someone lying on the ground. Colm stopped and kneeled beside him. He was neither a demon nor a man—only a boy of sixteen. Demons had ravished his young life. A bleeding, ragged, seared hole exposed the boy’s viscera. Tears of pain and fear soaked his pubescent cheeks. Colm’s wings unfurled. Heaven’s silver crystals of solace showered upon the suffering boy.
Colm wiped the tears from the boy’s cheeks and asked, “What comforts your soul?”
The boy’s blue eyes were fading, but they were still able to recognize the angel who had come to ease his death.
“You,” the boy breathed. Blood slid from his nose and the corners of his mouth.
“What is your name?”
“Michael.”
For a fleeting moment, Colm wondered if this boy’s impending death was a mockery.
The boy sighed as his life ended.
Colm escorted the boy’s soul to its egress and summoned a reaper. The gossamer draped reaper slid through the woods. It regarded the archangel, then moved on to complete its task.
Colm furled his wings and stood up. He felt the sting of a musket ball hit his right breast. It served as an admonishment. There was a battle raging around him, and he had become disconnected and distracted.
“Colm,” a soothing voice called.
“Joseph? Where are ya?”
“Here to your right, but you must take cover! You are unarmed!”
In contrast to the human men, Colm was heavily armed. He moved through the haze to his right and collided with Joseph behind a slim tree trunk. Both suppressed the need to demonstrate relief and joy over their reunion.
“Are ya all right?” Colm asked.
“Yes,” Joseph said. His eyes were drawn to Colm’s bloodied shirt. “You have been hit in the chest and are bleeding badly.”
“I’m fine.”
Joseph searched Colm’s eyes for their silver light. “You are not fine. If you have been hit by a demon’s ball—”
“I want ya to take Jeremiah and ya men and run,” Colm interrupted, “I’m putting a stop to this.”
As musket balls dashed clods of dirt and leaves upward from the forest floor and stripped trees of their bark, a yowling rose from somewhere in the black haze of the battle.
Michael saw demons pepper Gideon Eldon’s abdomen with musket balls and heard him scream. Stunned, Gideon looked down at the neat row of wooden buttons on his rough, but fashionable vest. Crimson blood spread across the torn and burned flaxen homespun material. Gideon collapsed.
“Fuck!” Michael yelled. With his curved surgical blade in one hand, he ran to Gideon’s side.
Abe and Gordon materialized from the gloom.
Michael unfurled his wings and sat beside Gideon.
Gideon wondered why Colm’s distressed angelic display on the road outside of Menotomy had frightened him, now that he knew the young man sitting beside him with the curly black hair and green eyes was an angel.
Gideon asked calmly, “Why was I so afraid of Heaven’s ascendancy?”
This question had been asked of Michael millions of times over the millenniums. He had no answer. His response was to bend and kiss Gideon’s filthy sweating forehead and blanket him with his blue aura. The touch of Michael’s angelic lips on his skin let Gideon die in peace. The light in Gideon’s eyes went out. He stared blankly up at Michael’s face.
Michael’s wings rustled as he escorted the dead man’s soul to its egress. A reaper moved like vapor through the woods in response to Michael’s summons.
Gordon watched Michael with a close eye.
The woods quieted. The surviving demons and the bodies they possessed vanished. Men walked through the odd haze of gray gun smoke and yellow sunlight and gathered around Gordon and Michael. Joseph and Colm arrived. Joseph started to kneel beside Gideon to administer medical care.
Michael said, “He’s already dead, Joseph.”
Patrick, Liam, and Seamus emerged from the haze.
“Did Gideon’s soul go to Heaven or Hell?” Gordon asked Michael.
The blunt question irritated Abe Rowlinson.
The question surprised Michael. Instead of looking to his archangel for guidance before answering an intrusive human question, he said, “Heaven.”
“If his soul was bound for Hell, what would you have done? Are you capable of gaining entrance into Lucifer’s den?”
Men grumbled at Gordon’s insensitive inquiry.
Abe stepped toward Gordon and spat, “I have had enough of your—”
“—no, Abe,” Joseph interceded. “I understand the motive behind his question.”
Michael didn’t understand the man’s motive. Furthermore, he didn’t like the man’s audacity to question the role of an angel. Michael frowned at Gordon.
Patrick’s eyes garnered Colm’s permission to speak. Colm nodded.
“Angels each have their own way of guidin’ a soul to its egress,” Patrick explained. “But we don’t chaperon the soul to its destination. That’s the role of a reaper. They wait for our signal.”
“And if you signal Hell?” Gordon asked.
“We don’t know how the reapers take souls to Hell. Only God and Lucifer know that.”
“If God marks their souls as Hell bound, does the dying deserve your comfort?”
Michael lunged at Gor
don and screamed, “FUCKER!” He shoved his curved surgical blade under Gordon’s chin and clutched the back of his neck so Gordon couldn’t move his head without the blade slicing his throat.
A few men moved to help Gordon. Seamus and Patrick intercepted them. Liam sat on the ground. His was too exhausted to care.
Colm crossed his arms over his bloodied shirt and said, “Let him go, Michael.”
Michael ignored Colm and dug his fingers harder into the back of Gordon’s neck. “How dare ya presume that an angel would withhold comfort from any human just because God has decided their souls aren’t worthy of Heaven!”
“Seamus, get Michael off Gordon,” Colm ordered.
Seamus hesitated. A part of him believed Michael’s anger was justified.
“Do you know him?” Seamus asked Colm.
“Aye. He tracks and kills demons.”
“HE’S A FUCKER!” Michael screamed. “Stay away from me Seamus or I’ll cut his head off!”
“Michael, please do not do this,” Joseph requested. “It will serve to accomplish nothing.”
Gordon concentrated on staying as still as possible. He remembered Michael’s anger and stubbornness outside the Greystoke Inn. He had no doubt that Michael would kill him in a fit of rage. What Gordon didn’t understand was why the archangel was standing idly by.
Seamus went to Michael and said, “I understand your anger, but you’ll regret it if you kill him.”
Michael spit in Gordon’s face, and then released him. Without looking at anyone, Michael shouldered his way through the gathered men and ran up hill westward through the woods. Patrick went after him.
“Stop,” Patrick said when he caught up to Michael.
Michael kept walking.
Patrick seized him by the upper arm.
Michael tried to pull away, but Patrick tightened his grip. “You ain’t the only one of us that’s fallin’ apart! But we ain’t attackin’ humans for no good reason. Liam’s dyin’! You’re makin’ his last days worse by havin’ a fit and makin’ him anxious!”
The angels were startled by the approach of a large animal through the woods to the west. Jeremiah appeared, leading an uncooperative horse.
“Damn horse! She bolted when she came across demons, then she bolted when she heard gunfire, then she bolted when she saw Colm,” Jeremiah said. “What’re you two doin’ out here alone?”
The boys remained silent.
Jeremiah’s eyes widened. “I’ll be damned…” He ran down the slope to the road, pulling the confused horse behind him.
“What’s he doin’?” Patrick asked Michael.
The boys looked down onto the road. They both jumped from the ridgeline on the hill and landed on the road. They ran to meet the men riding eastward as they yelled, “Brandon! Ian!”
The angels, men, horses, woods, and road were bathed in a burst of red, yellow, and blue light. Jeremiah had to shade his eyes to make out the rider on the other horse.
“I’ll be damned! Tatoson! How’d you get bit inta ridin’ with the angels?”
Tatoson smiled. “Mountain man, it is good to see you have survived the British incursion.”
“Incursion? Can you talk normal?”
Tatoson shrugged. “The angel with the red aura is ailing. I told Samuel I wou’d make sure he is delivered to his archangel.”
“You can see their auras?” Jeremiah asked, surprised.
Tatoson nodded.
Brandon dismounted. His jubilance was so great that he fought off a foreign erratic urge to weep. The angels’ wings unfurled and Heaven’s tenderness dusted the horses, Jeremiah, and Tatoson.
“They are beautiful,” Tatoson remarked as he watched Ian’s wings unfurl.
Patrick reached to touch Ian’s weak red aura. “Are you dyin’?”
The question sobered Michael’s joyful spirit.
“I’m tired and dirty,” Ian said. Without Brandon sitting in front of him in the saddle, Ian had nothing to rest his body against. He fell forward. Once again, his upper body was draped over a horse’s neck. His beautiful silver wings fell in gentle waves and blanketed his ailing spirit.
Colm, Seamus, Liam, and Joseph bounded down the slope and joined them.
The angels’ emotional reunion caused them to let their guard down, and their angelic display was visible to the militiamen in the woods on the hill. The rebels watched the angels’ joyful reunion.
Colm slipped his boot into a stirrup and pulled himself upward to balance on one foot as he encouraged Ian to sit up. Then, he got into the saddle in front of him.
Brandon and Jeremiah helped Liam climb into the saddle on the horse Jeremiah was leading. Jeremiah sprung into the saddle behind Liam. Tatoson leaned over and offered Seamus a hand. Seamus took the offer and Tatoson made room for Seamus to ride behind him in the saddle.
Joseph, Patrick, Brandon, and Michael fell in ahead of the horses. Wings were furled and auras doused. The weary men and angels moved eastward along the road toward Boston.
The militiamen gathered their dead. Gordon, Abe, Rufus, and those who remained of the company streamed down the hill, converged on the road behind the horses, and followed Dr. Warren and the angels.
For them, the long horrible battles of April 19, 1775 had finally come to a close.
Far ahead of the angels and the weary men who followed them, the British column led by, Lord Hugh Percy, Colonel Francis Smith, Major John Pitcairn, Captain Munday Pole, Captain Leslie Parsons, Captain Walter Laurie, and Ensign Henry de Berniere marched the road to madness through Menotomy.
The stretch of road through Menotomy marked the deadliest fighting that day. The British soldiers ransacked homes, searching for and killing rebels hiding inside. American civilians perished defending their families and property.
The Danvers militia, under the command of Captain Daniel Epes, suffered horrible casualties, yet those men, in conjunction with the Cambridge- Watertown militias under the command of Major Fergus Driscoll, and the Menotomy minutemen under the command of Captain Samuel Whittmore, maintained ferocious pressure on the British.
When the day came to an end, the British suffered 73 dead, 174 wounded, and 26 missing. The American casualties totaled 49 dead, 40 wounded, and 5 missing.
Lord Hugh Percy led his surviving soldiers through Charlestown Neck on the evening of April 19.
As the waning gibbous moon rose over Boston, rebels and British soldiers alike wondered, what have we done?
Twenty-seven
Suffolk County, Massachusetts
On the night of April 19, instead of entering Charlestown with Lord Percy and Colonel Francis Smith, Henry remained outside the Neck while Robert delivered the sullied body of William Sutherland. An angel had killed the demon in possession of Sutherland, making future demonic possession of the body impossible. Once Robert completed his task, he summoned twelve disembodied lower demons to participate in a rare ritual—the preparation of a living human vessel for death and permanent possession.
The ritual would be different than the death and possession of Captain Robert Percy, which had taken place two months ago in the woods of Suffolk County while shocked locals watched. Because this possession concerned the powerful leader of the demons, the transformation required a precise protocol that had been attempted only once.
Many of the residents of Charlestown evacuated as the British troops quartered in tents and other buildings throughout the town. Robert rode back through Charlestown Neck among the throng of people escaping the British occupation. The disembodied demons moved through the crowd, possessed human bodies, and then with discretion so the human would not be immediately missed, they followed Robert.
Outside of the Neck, Henry reunited with Robert and the demons. They traveled due west through Suffolk County and far beyond Roxbury until the sound of humanity could no longer be heard. Overhead, the waning gibbous moon cast cold white shadows through the trees. This was the lunar phase suitable for rituals associated with letting go and bani
shing; a time to clear out the old and prepare for the new.
They arrived at a small clearing on the bottom of a heavily wooded hill. A fast running stream skirted the clearing to the east. Henry and Robert dismounted.
Robert pointed at two young possessed women and said, “Remove the tack from the horses then get them on their way.”
Once the horses were driven from the clearing, twelve demons sat in a tight circle around Henry. Robert stood outside of the circle beside the stream. His orange eyes flamed brightly and lit the clearing as if it were aglow with flickering candlelight.
Henry took inventory of the possessed bodies surrounding him, pleased by their youth and beauty. “Stand,” Henry said to the demons.
They stood.
Henry’s eyes flashed. He stripped and stood naked before them.
The lower demons imitated Henry’s actions, and when they were through, twelve naked young men and women stood in a circle under the moon’s white shadows.
“Who does God command to kill this man?” Robert asked from the fringes of the circle.
The demons said, “Serepatice.”
“Who shall release the demon from this living body until such time that it can return to its permanent abode?”
The demons said, “We shall.”
A heavy expectation hung in the clearing. Then, the beautiful possessed bodies converged on Henry. They kissed his face, caressed his strong arms, fondled his penis, and licked his inner thighs. Henry’s demonic spirit absconded from the human vessel it possessed in a shaft of yellow-green light that rocketed into the night sky. For a few seconds, it seemed as if the sun had risen only to realize its error and drop back below the horizon.
The man, General Sir Henry Hereford, returned. The Massachusetts night was cold and unfamiliar; it was frightening to the man whose consciousness had been quashed by another being. But what horrified his soul the most were the men and women who were molesting his body.
“WHAT IS HAPPENING?” he screamed. He tried to shove them away, but there were too many of them. He turned to run, but twenty-four hands groped him with ferocity. He was pushed to the ground. They swarmed his body like bees desiring to taste their queen’s honey. Some kissed and licked his face, neck, chest, and abdomen. Others sucked his fingers, toes, penis, and nipples.
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