by Nana Malone
“You are the holy grail we all seek,” Radio Specialist Carver said. “Fully human.”
“It shouldn’t matter,” Elisabeth muttered, looking down at the patient who was probably already too far gone to save. “Dammit! No more of this … segregation! If you’re going to fight alongside Coalition troops, you’re going to get triaged like Coalition troops!”
“We … can’t …” Corporal Tills said. “The armistice says…”
“Fuck the armistice! Lucy!!! Mary!!!” Elisabeth shouted at the top of her lungs. “Get your asses in here! I need you!”
“But…”
“You called?” Mary stuck her head in the curtain. The Sata’an-human soldier snapped to attention.”
“Put a medic on your other patient,” Elisabeth snapped. “His injuries are non-life-threatening. You two have just been cleared … by me … to work on this top secret patient.”
“What … secret … patient?” Lucy also stepped behind the curtain.
“Lucy … Mary … meet Corporal Tills,” Elisabeth said. “He’s an … uh … he’s a genetically engineered super-soldier. He has a tail. For balance. In battle. So does the guy on the table. His name is Corporal Kennard. You two got a problem with that?”
“Uh … no?” Mary said, not at all sure she meant it.
“Does this have anything to do with that black-winged angel some say follow you around?” Lucy asked.
“Yes!” Elisabeth stuck her hands back into the intestines of the soldier on the table. “Mary … Corporal Tills wishes to donate a second pint of blood to Corporal Kennard. Hook him up. Make sure he doesn’t give a drop more than that. He’s already donated a pint today.”
“Two pints,” Corporal Tills said. “We’ve got more blood than you. We can donate up to 3.5 pints.”
“Whatever,” Elisabeth stitched up three separate places where she had just pulled shrapnel out of her patient’s large intestine. “Lucy … Corporal Kennard has a perforated bowel. We’re going to have to flush the abdominal cavity with saline and then start him on a hefty cycle of antibiotics if we’re going to give him a chance to live.”
“Why the hell wasn’t he wearing body armor?” Lucy asked.
“He was,” Elisabeth tilted her head towards the shredded flak vest. “Doesn’t do much good at point-blank range.”
“Pulse is erratic and weak,” Lucy said. “Blood pressure is barely readable.”
Elisabeth tried using the sixth sense Azrael had been teaching her to use to answer that question. Not only could she sense the soldier's consciousness clinging to his body, but also received images.
“Hey … soldier! Listen up!” Elisabeth gave her habitual pre-surgery pep-talk. “You want to avoid that fiery hell y’all been put in charge of guarding? Well you just keep clinging to your body while I patch it up. You hear me? You just hang on as hard as you can no matter what and we’ll do the rest. Okay?”
“Suction is ready,” Lucy held out a tube. “Do you want me to mop the floor or vacuum the house?”
“Vacuum the house,” Elisabeth said. “I see more shrapnel.”
As Lucy suctioned the patient's abdominal cavity so infection wouldn’t kill him, the consciousness which clung to the body on her operating table sent Elisabeth a query. It was strange, being able to communicate with a patient whose body was unconscious, but whose spirit was awake and alert. It wasn’t quite what Azrael described. Much cruder. But Elisabeth intuited what carrot would entice the fallen soldier to fight to stay with every ounce of his being. She bent down to whisper the sweet compulsion into his ear.
“If you stay,” Elisabeth whispered. “I will introduce you to her. I will help her understand who you are. The rest will be up to you.”
For the next several hours, they pieced the soldier back together while Mary rustled up more blood. Radio Specialist Carver put in a call for more HH-phenotype donors and more donors came. The last two were blatantly not human. Mary took their lizard-like features in stride, jabbing the blood collection needles into their warm, faintly striped skin and made small talk.
“Shit,” Lucy jabbed a third syringe of Rocefin into the IV as soon as she finished flushing the soldier’s abdominal cavity. “How the fuck is this guy even still alive?”
“Genetically engineered super-soldier,” Elisabeth said, using the white lie which was not too far off from the truth as she stitched up the soldier's abdomen. “Super-duper double-oh-seven super-spook crap. Welcome! We’ve all been judged worthy to come into the inner circle … although they weren’t expecting us to get tossed into the lion's den the first twenty minutes on the job. Least the Iraqi’s could have done was let us get through the orientation video!”
“Figured it was only a matter of time before the government started gene-splicing animal DNA into human soldiers,” Mary said, her eyes wide as the soldier before her gave her a wide, sharp-toothed smile. She glanced at the name tag and rank on the soldier’s uniform. “Corporal … DuBois? Shit … did you guys start out like this? Or did you … volunteer … to undergo some sort of experimental treatment?”
“I was born like this, Ma’am,” Corporal DuBois tasted the air with his forked tongue. “I’m sorry my appearance offends you. They don’t let us out much.”
“Offends?” Mary glanced at the sling the soldier wore around his arm from an earlier injury and scrapes on the side of a face that would be human-looking but not for his serpentine eyes and the faint striping visible on his skin. “We’re all on the same side here. I can’t … I can’t fathom … shit! You’re like Spider Man or something!”
The Corporal gave Mary a toothy grin, practically beaming as he proceeded to flirt in a most human-like manner.
“Lucy,” Elisabeth said, the wheels spinning in her brain as she tried to think of a way to introduce their patient to the nurse who’d intrigued him. “I’m … drained. Would you mind taking Corporal Kennard through post-op procedures? He gets treated here until they can airlift him to whatever super-spook hospital they usually treat these guys at. I have a feeling he’d like to meet the woman who saved his life.”
“You’re the one who called the shots,” Lucy said. “I just vacuumed the shit out of his gut while you stitched his colon back together.”
Literally.
“Talk about a shitty start,” Mary jibed, referring to the bacteria-laden contents of the large intestine which had ruptured.
“If you hadn’t been here,” Elisabeth said, feeling over-tired and punchy, “he’d have been shit out of luck!”
All three of them snorted. Morgue-humor. Although at least it appeared Corporal Kennard wasn’t going to die. Not today. His heart rate and blood pressure had stabilized the moment Elisabeth had stitched him back together and his vital signs were growing stronger by the moment. Azrael was right. The Sata’an-human hybrids were tough as hell.
“Ten-four, oh talented one,” Lucy gave her the Muslim greeting of hand touching the forehead, the lips and the heart they’d all picked up from Kadima. “I shall hold our super-soldier's hand and swear at him like a longshoreman like you do until he is too terrified of me to dare die.”
Elisabeth gave her a wan smile, her exhaustion suddenly real. She hadn’t realized how apprehensive she’d been about working with Azrael’s allies until she’d actually done it. She handed the patient over to Lucy’s capable hands and began to scrub out.
“Do you really have a tail?” Mary asked the mottled-skinned Corporal she’d finished getting blood from. She squealed in surprise as he released his tail from its sling and slipped it out from the trench coat to caress one of her calves. “Oh … I can … see … how that might give you an edge in battle.”
“Not just on the battlefield,” Corporal DuBois flirted shamelessly as his tail slipped serpent-like to touch Mary’s arm. “We’re very … astute … with our tails.”
Elisabeth smiled as she trudged out the tent and discovered a tent-city had sprung up around them while they’d been in surgery. The aroma of overly
-salted MRE heater meals and instant coffee wafted in her direction from one of the tents. The soon-to-be mess hall was already up. Everywhere she looked, men were hustling equipment to transform Saddam Hussein’s desert air-strip into an American military base. It always amazed her how quickly the military could set up and break down a base such as this. With no quarters assigned yet for privacy, she made her way to a dirt wall between the airstrip and what appeared to be a field to sit down, hoping Azrael would appear.
“Oh … Az,” Elisabeth sighed, leaning back against the rock and pulling her coat closer to guard against the cold. “No wonder you pity them.”
Azrael was not here. Elisabeth dozed off in the middle of the field until the sound of the next chopper coming in with wounded roused her from her sleep and sent her back into the medical tent to deal with the next batch of wounded. These ones were all fully human. As were the next six batches of wounded. But Azrael did not make his appearance. Whatever he was doing, it was important enough that he didn’t have time to pop in to see her.
She hoped he was okay.
* * * * *
Chapter 44
And angels shall enter unto them
From every gate
Saying Salāmun ‘Alaykum (peace be upon you)
For that you persevered in patience!
Excellent indeed is the final home!’
Ar-Ra'ad 13:23-24
Earth – March 31, 2003
Imam Ali Mosque, Najaf, Iraq
“Thee alone do we worship,” the Grand Ayatollah prayed, “and thee alone we seek for help.” Holy beads slipped through his fingers, the deeply ingrained ritual helping his mind expand beyond the four walls of the tiny room where demons posing as Saddam Fedayeen had locked him in the back of the mosque. Although he was not as capable of waging jihad against the Evil One as the Prophet Muhammad had been, peace be upon him, he could detect the smaller demons still lurking in his mosque.
A pleasant tingle of electricity permeated the sanctuary. He finished the last few lines of the Al-Fatiha, the opening Sura of the Quran, before getting to his feet and turning to where he sensed the familiar presence.
“Do not keep yourself hidden, Malak al-Maut,” the Ayatollah said. “These are difficult times and my people are dying. If it is my time to die, I welcome thee to carry my spirit into the arms of our Beloved.”
Azrael finished materializing into the room so he was completely visible. Malak al-Maut was tall, thin, and as dark as the night he shepherded the souls of the martyrs through to be reunited with Allah in Paradise. The legends described him as perfect, as all angels were purported to be, but the Ayatollah was surprised to see that this one hid a boyish countenance beneath his serious expression.
“As-salamu alaykum,” Azrael greeted. “I’m not here to take you. Yet. At least I hope I don’t have to take you. That’s the plan.”
The dark angel’s expression showed concern, and also amusement. Like most devout Muslims, the Grand Ayatollah believed the path of righteousness would grant him entrance into Paradise, whether the Angel of Death chose to escort him there personally or not. The Angel of Mercy had assured him that Paradise was real.
“I didn’t think it could get any worse than that Ba’athist butcher being put in charge of this city,” the Ayatollah complained. “But then a demon seized control of his body and now he is even more evil. He’s killing women and children!”
“That’s why I’m here,” Azrael said. “We have a favor to ask.”
“Ask,” the Ayatollah said. “And if it is within my power, I shall grant your wish.”
“You, of all the religious leaders in Iraq,” Azrael said, “are sensible and even-handed. We want you to invite the American commanding officer for a parley as soon as they finish clearing the city to discuss allying against Saddam Hussein.”
The Ayatollah contemplated the Angel of Death’s request. Azrael waited for the cities highest-ranking holy man to process his thoughts without interruption.
“We are Shi’ite,” the Ayatollah said. “Not Sunni. Our people were treated brutally under the regime of Saddam Hussein and our city stripped of its resources. The enemy of my enemy is our friend.”
“Good,” Azrael said. “We can count on you?”
“Me?” the Ayatollah shrugged. “I’m too pragmatic to create enemies where none should exist. I am not fooled by these demons into mistaking who our true enemy is. The problem will be the families of the patriarchs. The Al-Quds surviving families won't let the Americans anywhere near this mosque.”
“Your men make suicide runs against tanks,” Azrael said. “And the Al-Quds Militia has ties to Iran. Iran is flooding your ranks with young Iranians eager to wage jihad against the Americans. Coalition forces have no way of knowing who is really an enemy versus a tired old war veteran doing so under threat of having their family murdered.”
The Ayatollah drummed his fingers together in a contemplative gesture as the gears turned in his head, the mind of a scholar paired with the pragmatism of somebody who’d spent a great deal of his life being marginalized by the ruling party.
“I’m not a great fan of the United States,” the Ayatollah said at last. “Her leaders are every bit as guilty as Saddam Hussein for wreaking havoc in this area of the world. But her people are not the Great Satan some of my contemporaries make her out to be. Especially now that I have truly seen evil. It would not be wise to cast out Saddam Hussein, only to turn our country over to the Evil One’s demons.”
“The Americans are just people.” The formal posture of Azrael's wings relaxed as he recognized the Ayatollah was open to reason. “The majority of soldiers amassed outside this city are good men, although every army has its roughnecks and rejects, the same as your own militias. The American commanding officer will deal with you fairly.”
“I will announce I desire negotiations and enter them with open eyes,” the Ayatollah said. “But I cannot promise the people of this city will simply allow the invaders to stroll in without a fight. Or that we will reach an agreement. Not when so many lives have been lost.”
“That’s all we can ask,” Azrael said. “Hear them out. Drive a hard bargain to get what your people need. And then reach an agreement so you avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”
The Ayatollah studied the ebony angel standing before him. The Angel of Death had never made himself visible before, but it was neither the first time he’d sensed his presence, nor the first time he’d been asked a favor by one of the angels. Although darker and more slender, the Ayatollah could see the bloodline of the Angel of Mercy in Malak al-Maut’s chiseled features. He made the Muslim gesture of respect, touching his fingers to his forehead, his lips and his heart. It was not his place to indulge his curiosity.
“Is there anything you can do, Malak al-Maut,” the Ayatollah asked, “to rid our city of that demon pulling the puppet strings of the Saddam Fedayeen?”
“You know interference by our species is forbidden,” Azrael shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “But … Allah has issued a fatwa decreeing I am to rid your city of the demon.”
Nervous. The Angel of Death appeared to be nervous. The Ayatollah had learned from his dealings with the Angel of Mercy that even angels felt fear when it came to creatures as evil as the demons exorcised from Mecca by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. The Ayatollah had exorcised a few of his own in his lifetime, but the two who’d taken up residence in his city made his scalp crawl under his turban. Had the Angel of Mercy not taught him prayers to keep them from seizing control of his body, it would be him ordering the murder of women and children instead of the Ba’athist leader.
“The demon thought I was too stupid not to recognize when somebody tempted me to see what I wanted to see,” the Ayatollah said, “instead of reality.”
“You are descended from one of us,” Azrael said. “One who possessed the ability to resist this kind of trickery. It is why we come to you whenever we need help.”
The Ayatollah nod
ded. The only reason the demon called Chemosh kept him alive was because he needed something. Something he would not give willingly. He gestured towards the locked door where two guards were stationed outside.
“And what of my gilded cage?"
Malak al-Maut gave him a mischievous grin, a most unexpected expression from the most feared angel in Islam. He stepped up to the door and knocked twice.
“Knock, knock,” Azrael said in Arabic.
“Who’s there?” one of the guards asked.
“Grim,” Azrael listened to ascertain the exact position of the two guards.
“Grim who?” the other guard asked.
“Grim Reaper!” Azrael dissipated the door and tapped both guards on the shoulder before they could shout and alert the other Saddam Fedayeen they had an intruder in their midst.
In a single practiced motion, he grabbed the consciousness of both men as their bodies fell to the floor. Although the Ayatollah could not see the two souls Malak al-Maut had just reaped, he could sense them. They were not the enormous malefactors he’d dealt with earlier, but they still made his skin crawl.
“If you’ll excuse me, your holiness,” Azrael said. “These two have a date with Gehenna … um … Sheol.”
“Wa alaki s-salam,” the Ayatollah made a sign of blessing upon the dark angel as he did for any other pilgrim who came to him for assistance.
Azrael acknowledged the blessing with a respectful bow of his head. With a flash of darkness, the Angel of Death disappeared, dragging the two demons along with him. The heaviness which had weighed upon his mosque disappeared along with him, the source of putrefaction dragged kicking and screaming to Sheol where it belonged.
The Ayatollah sighed and glanced towards the neat, orderly wall tiles with their repeating pattern of blues and gold. Order. He craved order. But Allah had decided he wasn’t going to get any order until he created some of his own in this city.
This was his mosque. Demon, or no demon, he was the caretaker of this holy place and would not be run out like some jackal. Kneeling back down upon his prayer rug and ignoring the two bodies outside the melted door, the Grand Ayatollah resumed reciting the Quran, praying for guidance on exactly how he would pull off the favor the Angel of Death had asked of him