Lucifer's Legacy: Book 1 of the Heaven's Insurrection Saga

by Joel Stewart

  “Target is moving at approximately 85 leagues per hour.” Announced the surveillance craft that watched from the skies far above them.

  “Ready Cannons.” Kurt called out as one last reminder. The attack formation was burning in at close to 800 leagues per hour, and each airship would only have a short window of attack. He watched the ships in front of him fire a short burst each, and then bank off to the left, but he still did not have a clear view of what he would be hitting.

  “It’s turning . . . it’s . . . AHHH!” The voice of one of Kurt’s fellow pilots cut off dramatically as an airship burst into flames and careened to the grounds below. Stray liquid fire streamed across Kurt’s field of view, leftovers of whatever had apparently taken out the airship. When the ship in front of him banked off, Kurt finally had his shot, which he almost missed. Before him was a creature with giant wings, a scaly hide, and one arm and one leg that transitioned from scales to metal at the elbow and knee joint.

  Kurt scrambled in his head to make sense of what he was seeing. Dragons were creatures of myth and legend. There had never been any found alive or dead, and yet every culture on the planet had them integrated into their myths and legends. Most historians believed they existed at some point, but Kurt had never expected to see one alive, much less one that had been mechanically altered. Science fiction books liked to explore the concept of cyborgs, half-human half-machine beings capable of inhuman achievements, but no significant progress had ever been made. Now he was faced with both impossibilities combined into one creature . . . and it wanted to kill him.

  Kurt snapped out of his state of shock and refocused on taking down the beast. One airship pilot had fallen victim thus far and Kurt would not let himself be added to that number. He lined up his sights and unleashed a hail of bullets that pelted the scaly hide with minimal effect. He continued to fire as he approached closer than he thought was safe—after all, the point of this formation was to let each airship fire off a volley at a safe distance and then peel off before getting in range of potential retaliation. He guessed the last fatality pushed his luck as well, but he could not get himself to bank off.

  The dragon tucked its wings in and spun its body to face Kurt’s airship. Kurt could see the dragon’s head moving in a whip-like fashion, no doubt building momentum to hurl a ball of flame in his direction. He wouldn’t give it a chance. Instead of banking off to attempt and evade the dragon’s attack, Kurt pressed his own. He lined up the beast’s head and landed several rounds along the somewhat more vulnerable underside of the neck and face. Fire that was meant for him spewed from the bullet holes as Kurt peeled off to avoid a collision. The dragon, now covered in its own fire, dropped like a bag of rocks to the ground below.

  “Target neutralized.” Kurt exclaimed over his radio. “Send recovery team to location 50 leagues due west of Jorgen.”

  “Recovery team take full precautions.” Reminir’s voice crackled back. “It may still be alive on the ground . . . if it is, kill it.”

  General Reminir looked over at one of his air cruiser pilots. “Take me there in person.” He commanded. “I want to see this thing for myself.” Air cruisers had great blades on their roof that rotated and allowed the vehicle to have vertical take offs and landings. Once moving fast enough in the air, a secondary engine kicked in and the blades retracted, creating a slow moving but versatile airship. The two primary roles for an air cruiser were as a mobile weapons platform, or gunship, and as a troop transport.

  Chapter 4

  Dengrin, Capital of Denoria

  Bob, longtime friend of Davis and the owner of Bob’s Eatery, pulled up outside the old tower next to Lena’s property. “You sure you don’t need a ride back?” Bob asked Davis and the vehicle came to a halt. “I don’t mind waiting.”

  “No,” Davis replied. “We are grateful for the lift, but we are going to be a while. We can call Temporary Transport if we need a lift back.” Davis did not think they would need a lift back; in fact, he was not sure if they would be going back. He called Bob because his back exit from the castle was not near any of their cars and he needed someone he could trust—Chengarian assassins could be anywhere. “I need you to not let anyone know where we are. There are assassins after General Reminir’s daughter, and we are tasked with ensuring her safety.”

  Bob looked sullen. “Done. Anything else I can do for you? Anything at all?” The bulky ex Special Forces instructor tugged on his beard as he tried to read into what was happening.

  “Actually, can you get a message to General Reminir that his daughter is safe, and I have her tucked away at an undisclosed location?” Davis replied after a pause. “He will be worried sick after the attack on the castle last night.”

  “Can do.” Bob replied. “And if you need anything, and I mean anything, from a ride to a tank, you let me know.”

  “You are one of the few people I can trust right now so you can expect a call from me sooner or later. Thanks again for this.” Davis said with a smirk. He turned to the others in the back seat. “OK guys, when we get out of the vehicle we will be exposed for a few moments; book it for the tower and don’t look back until you are heading for the basement.” He looked over at Bob with a smile and held out his hand. Bob took it and a firm handshake ensued. “Till we meet again dead or dying . . .” Davis began.

  “Show ’em what hell’s like.” Bob finished. It was a good luck chant used in the Special Forces before a team broke into parts for a multi-phased mission.

  The two men nodded at each other and Davis looked back at the group one more time. “Ready?” Nods followed his question. “Go!” They unloaded out of the vehicle and bolted for the tower. Within moments they found themselves safely inside watching Bob drive away.

  “Well that was anticlimactic.” Jesse said between breaths. It was barely a hundred-foot run but Jesse had never tried his hand at cardio.

  “Trust me, anticlimactic is how you want all dangerous situations to end.” Davis said coldly. “Now let’s find this basement.”

  “No need.” Came the strained voice of an old woman. They all turned in a heartbeat, Davis had his handgun trained on her. “Come now, there is no need for that.” She said, her voice changing, getting deeper and more youthful. The wrinkles in her face pulled back, her hair shifted to silver, and the hunch in her back straightened. A familiar face was staring them down. It was the mysterious woman.

  Davis put his gun back in its holster. “Our commander I presume.”

  “I see you have had a productive meeting with your other halves.” Lena said smiling. “I am known as Lena Starstrider. I am the commander of a group of angels sent to this planet long before recorded history to defend it from the demon Serenis. Hopefully you know a little bit of what happened next, but let’s move to a safer location before we start a more in-depth conversation.” She motioned to the gaping group to follow and headed toward a door in the back of the main entry room. She led them down a flight of stairs to a dungeon-like basement. On the far wall from the stairs Lena pressed a hidden pressure plate and a door slid open.

  Without a word the group followed her through. The tunnel was a perfect circle, Davis recognized it as exactly the same as the cave he tried to break into the other night. They walked for a few hundred feet before passing the first pair of guards. They wore a crisp white tactical uniform complete with a full arsenal ranging from automatic weapons to grenades, handguns, and knives. They both had a tattoo of a star on their right hand. They let Lena and the rest of the group pass without saying a word.

  Another three twists in the unnatural tunnel and the group found a second set of guards and a sturdy-looking steel door that had a console to the side of it. Lena walked up to the console and put her hand on it. After a brief moment the door opened, and they walked into a large room complete with a TV and couches. This one room was larger than the entire house that Lena pretended to live in on the surface. She motioned to the couches and the group sat down.

  “I’d like to s
tart by apologizing for the deception.” Lena began. “And I would also like to apologize to Davis and Cliff for the little incident the other night. I have been trying to root out a Chengarian military cell operating in the city and thought you were part of their group when you attempted to gain access to the caves.”

  “You owe me a truck.” Davis muttered.

  Lena smirked. “I think you will find that from this point forward your truck will be the least of your concerns. Now that you have been awakened our focus needs to be on preparing you for the unavoidable battle with the demon Serenis and her minions.”

  “Seems like you can handle her minions just fine.” Davis said dryly. “Why do you need us?”

  “Those men I fought when you escaped the attack on my compound are nothing!” Lena snapped. “And neither are the dragons that attacked the castle the other night.” The four looked at each other worriedly. “The demon Serenis has four generals, and the five of them are every bit as strong as the five of us were when you four were still angels.” Lena paused, calmed down, and sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you, we seem to be at a disadvantage at the present, which is why we need to start training as soon as possible.”

  “Why were you tracking our vehicles?” Jesse asked. “Is it normal to spy on your own people?”

  “I had agents keeping tabs on you to defend you from the Chengarian cell I was dealing with. And from the report I received from Arelia, it is good that I did.” Jesse looked down at the floor with a sad expression on his face, the others looked at him with sympathy. Lena smirked. “Just because she had orders to keep you safe doesn’t mean that Arelia was performing an act for you Jesse—she would probably hit me for saying this, but she really likes you. That girl couldn’t hide her emotions even if she wanted to.”

  “Really?” Jesse said with a smile quickly replacing his perplexed expression.

  “OK, enough of this. So the world is in peril. We are the only ones who can help it, and we need training. So what do you need us to do?” Davis broke in irritated. Seriously, we find out the world is in peril and we are talking about Jesse’s love life? he thought. Jesse looked up at him with a scowl.

  “First I want you to listen.” Lena replied coldly. “I am glad to hear you are excited to get started, but I want you to understand the full magnitude of what the Creator has tasked us with, and that requires history. Try to remember some of the stories I have told you in the past as they will help put the pieces together for you. This story begins with the Creator’s most powerful creation, Lucifer. He was the greatest angel in the heavens and was allowed to wield unmatched power over the other creations in the universe. This power slowly corrupted Lucifer, and he began to covet the power of the creator himself. So persuasive was he that one third of the angels of heaven were convinced to join him in his rebellion. When the time came that he enacted his plan, they were transformed into demons by their rebellion. A great battle in heaven followed and our defeat seemed assured, but Lucifer fell victim to his own pride and became trapped in an Abyss, a special prison created for him and his armies. Unfortunately his entire army was not trapped with him, and they escaped to this world. Lucifer may be gone, but Serenis is his legacy. Infuriated by failure and driven mad by the seemingly disproportionate attention the Creator had given the humans of this world, Serenis, the most powerful of the remaining demons, sought to transform mankind into her own creation. Beings wrought in her image.”

  Everyone just stared at Lena in rapped attention. With a satisfied smile she continued. “We were sent to earth to defend humankind from the evil they now faced. As leader of the Cherubim, the warrior angels, I was chosen to lead this army.” Lena stood up and held out her hand, the others watched in awe as it suddenly burst into flames. A sword hilt formed inside her closed fingers and a blade slowly began to grow out of it, wrapped in flame. Within moments, she was holding a massive flaming sword almost 5 feet long. Intricate carvings covered its surface and the base of the blade had a cruel-looking serrated edge. The flame wrapped around the blade but did not originate from it.

  “I am ashamed to say that one of my subordinates, Bren, joined with Lucifer. We will undoubtedly face him on the battlefield soon.” The sword shrunk back and vanished. The wide eyes around the room spoke for themselves. Lena sat back down and continued. “The numbers and relative strength of our angelic army had an uncanny similarity to those demons who escaped. For lack of a better expression, we were evenly matched. In an attempt to break the balance, Serenis had her demons possess dragons, the most powerful creatures indigenous to Velor. We responded in kind and the ensuing battles drove the beasts to extinction.”

  “How?” Davis cut in. “This Serenis demon couldn’t have an unlimited army, so how did you end up killing all the dragons through possession?”

  Briefly startled by the interruption, Lena smiled at Davis and responded. “That is a great question Davis, and the answer is two-fold. The properties of the spiritual realm of the world are not normal. Once an angel or demon possesses someone or something, they cannot undo the possession—it is permanent. This permanence does not follow through into death, however. If a possessed being dies, only the physical body dies. The spiritual being, angel or demon, is then freed from the host and free to possess again.”

  “Wow,” Davis mumbled. “That seems like a futile war.”

  “Indeed it was. It raged for thousands of years.” Lena said sadly.

  “Why would this . . . Creator pit you evenly matched in an unwinnable war?” Jesse asked. He still had problems acknowledging the existence of a God. The others nodded their heads with agreement to his question.

  “I have asked myself that same question many times over the millennia. Watching things unfold I think that this ultimately has nothing to do with us, but that it is some test for humanity, that somehow the Creator is using the demon rebellion to see how humanity will face it. Regardless, pondering such things is ultimately pointless. The complexity of what is the Creator is far beyond even my comprehension, and his reasons for doing things are rarely readily apparent. All I know is that we are here for a reason, a purpose, and I will fulfill that purpose until I am no longer capable of doing so.”

  “So . . . who cares how many die in the process?” Jesse growled in a frustrated tone.

  Lena looked down at Jesse tenderly. “Jesse, this world, this life, it’s not the end. Death may separate you for a time from those you love, but unless they find themselves bound for hell you will meet them again in the afterlife. Death is like a caterpillar forming a chrysalis. The caterpillar is not gone, it is just transformed into something even more beautiful. Death is the same.”

  “I know we are getting a little off topic, but . . . hell?” Alex asked concerned. “Who ends up there?”

  “The Creator is the ultimate judge. All I can say for sure is that he shows favor on those who seek him. That is why the Sanctum does its best to guide its followers in the pursuit of the Creator.”

  Everyone sat in silence for a few moments. Cliff broke the silence with a mutter about making some phone calls, but Jesse was the first to really speak up. “I am sure we are all thinking about who we need to share this revelation with, but we really need to think about how we are going to approach people with this knowledge. I know most of my friends will never believe me if I just give them a phone call and tell them to start attending Sanctum meetings.”

  “That is true.” Lena confirmed as she stood up again. “But soon you will have more than words to back up what you are saying.” She held her hand out and a sphere of light formed above it, floating in the air.

  “Why haven’t you been showing humanity this all along?” Davis asked angrily. “If you showed humanity your power they would listen.”

  “Would they listen? Or would they covet it as the demons coveted the power of the Creator?” Lena responded sharply. “In any case it does not matter. I received orders shortly after Serenis was sealed to let mankind take its own course. To show th
em the way from the background of society so the choice of whether or not to seek the Creator fell on the shoulders of each of his creations. So I was ordered, and so I have done.”

  “So the Creator . . . can talk with you?” Davis asked calming down a bit.

  “I have not heard any words directly from the Creator, he has sent the Archangel Michael to speak with me a few times. It was actually Michael that gave us the plan and means to imprison Serenis to begin with, otherwise the Great War could still be taking place to this day.”

  “So we do have some allies in this, even if they seem to be somewhat unreliable.” Davis muttered.

  Lena glared at Davis with a disapproving frown. “The Creator is far from unreliable, he gives the help that is needed, when it is needed, for the reasons he chooses. We cannot fathom the intricacies or reasons for our creation, but each day we are gifted with life and we should thank the Creator for that gift.” Lena rebutted.

  “Easy for you to say. You seem to live forever.” Jesse added.

  Lena’s eyes began to glow white, seemingly from frustration. “We don’t have time for me to explain all of this to you right now, but I will tell you this. It is true that I have only seen a few angels truly die . . . and that happened during Lucifer’s rebellion, but your lives are so much richer than ours. Your emotions, the ups and the downs, fill your lives with a driven purpose I can only imagine. All I have is duty. And yes, you die, but when you die you are transformed to something greater! Your life will be as long as mine, you just can’t see into your future reality from your present one! While I don’t covet what it is to be human, I often wish I could feel what you feel, even if for a moment.”

  Lena’s eyes were burning white by the end of her speech and Jesse found himself shaking a little. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.” He stammered. “So . . . you were talking about evenly matched sides and Michael helped you win?”

  “It wasn’t a victory, it was more of delay, a chance for humanity to recover from millennia of war.” Lena calmed down when she saw Jesse shaking and the glow in her eyes dimmed. “And the cost for that delay was the loss of my four angelic generals and my army of angels. We were forbidden to possess a human, so my generals bonded themselves with a human family and were passed down through their lineage throughout the ages. I did my best to keep the families together so they would have bonds of friendship already in place when the time came that they would be needed and, to this end, I feel I have succeeded. Freeing the army of angels is another matter entirely, however. There is another oddity about this world that I have not seen on any other, and Serenis took advantage of this to render our army helpless. Have any of you heard of animal Matriarchs?”