Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

Lucia fell to her knees, folded her hands and focused her eyes on the dark skies. Dim light from outside the slender window fell across her body and cast her in a sparse glow. She took a breath to calm her nerves and prayed.
 

Heavy engines rumbled far below, joined by rowdy voices and screams. The cacophony faded until her voice filled her head. She prayed hard and long. After awhile her knees ached against the cold stone floor.

General Temeculus stood above his battle map drawn on General Wells’s stretched flesh. In his large hand he held a tarnished cup filled with hot blood. He lifted the cup to his nose and inhaled the warm coppery scent. His captains surrounded the table. General Wells’s head did not move, yet a low animal groan escaped his mouth.
 

Temeculus studied his map. He paused and delivered Black Angel a satisfied smile. With a pinky extended, he sipped from his dented cup. His spies delivered him the information he wanted. The Marines at Camp Pendleton started to evacuate. The first convoys dispersed the camp a few hours after the initial invasion, leaving the general’s convoy for last.
 

Temeculus desired this general’s hide stretched across another table, the one he planned to use for his main attack into Denver and down into the Colorado Rockies to open Hell’s magnificent door.
 

The necessity of destroying Denver to secure a base for Satan dominated his thoughts. He fought hard to maintain a lightening pace, fast enough to keep Joan off balance. He spoke to Hitler before the invasion and the tortured soul told him how a blitzkrieg worked. After their chat, Temeculus tossed Hitler’s worthless soul back into the Lake of Fire.
 

Temeculus turned away from the map. He strode towards his balcony to gaze over the city. “Black Angel, Wrath.” He waited as his two heralds stepped to his side.
 

“Black Angel, you made me proud last night. We won a major advantage against our enemies, and we are closer to conquering Heaven.”
 

He grasped Black Angel’s cold hand and turned to the other herald. “Wrath, I need you to send a few mortal soldiers to attack the Camp Pendleton units headed to Denver. Bring the commanding general to me, alive. Do not, no matter what, engage in battle yourself.”

“Yes, my lord.”

General Temeculus laid a hand on Wrath’s shoulder. “Go now. Let’s put our new army to the test.”

Wrath leaped from the balcony. His horrid steed raced from midair. Wrath mounted the beast and rode to the ground with his sword in hand. He barked orders to the mortals below, engines started.

General Temeculus wrapped a hand around Black Angel’s slender waist and gazed into her red eyes. “Stick with me through this, and you will be Hell’s new queen.”

30

Colonel Frank Andrews, a full bird colonel and Camp Pendleton’s newest commander, stood at his office window as his Marines evacuated the base. The sight saddened him. In his thirty years in service to his country he never experienced such hopelessness.
 

A strong loss washed over him after he opened the red folder sealed with red melted wax, stamped with the presidential emblem. When he read the words on the top-secret document his heart broke. He dismissed his entire office staff, placed a call to his commanders, and gave the order to reposition. Within minutes Camp Pendleton exploded with activity.
 

Frank Andrews prepared himself after General Wells’s defeat in Los Angeles. He ordered a red alert, reinforced the camp’s perimeter, and focused on a final defense. He ordered everyone from cooks to clerks to draw weapons and prepare themselves for battle.
 

After he read his orders for the evacuation to Denver, anger pumped into his veins. He blinked his eyes, cleared his thoughts and regarded the paper on his desk as if the item resembled a venomous spider. He stared out the window. Hummers, Harrier jets, and helicopters moved everywhere. The first convoy left the night before, followed by convoys every five hours. He waited to join the last convoy and say goodbye to an old friend, unsure whether they would meet again.

A young Marine arrived to the office and gathered the colonel’s last packed box. “Sir, your vehicle is waiting downstairs.”

 
“I’ll be down soon, son.” The Marine saluted and carried the box away.
 

Frank straightened his gray-green camouflage uniform and placed his hand on his holstered fifty-caliber handgun. He gave his empty office a hard visual sweep, performed a crisp turn, and headed down the stairs to join his troops.

Gunnery Sergeant Tobias Green ordered his men to pack and ready their vehicles for departure. He inspected his Marine platoon dressed for combat. He pulled on their gear and scrutinized their weapons. He shook canteens filled with water and pressed the water bladders strapped to their backs. They carried M4 assault rifles equipped with the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight. After he inspected the platoon, he ordered them to board their Hummers.

Tobias turned toward the northern horizon where L.A. spires once commanded the view. Shame assaulted him after the general retreat crackled over his secured radio. He did not want to abandon fellow Marines in the field to die. Hot anger coupled with infantile helplessness wrecked havoc with his pride and sense of honor.
 

He checked his weapon as his platoon mounted their Hummers equipped with fifty-caliber machine guns mounted in crow’s nests.
 

The sergeant climbed aboard his lead Hummer. Their mission involved rear protection for the convoy. An M1A1 tank platoon pulled up behind the mounted Marines. The tanks rumbling turbine engines and the sweet multipurpose fuel caused his adrenalin to pump. He leaned back in his seat as a commotion occurred further up the line. He figured Colonel Andrews mounted his vehicle and ordered the Marines to move out.
 

He pulled back the charging handle on his weapon and released the grip. The action caused a round to chamber with a smooth metallic clack. The convoy began to roll ahead. Despite his somber mood, hope fluttered in his heart with delicate wings.
 

Tobias remembered the Los Angeles battle and the soft voice in his head. The voice told him to wake up. When he didn’t respond the voice sighed and shouted for the angel to break through his mortal sleepwalk. This shout staggered Tobias as he stood on the ready line for deployment into battle. At first, he thought his mind cracked under the extreme stress as gunfire and explosions echoed throughout Los Angeles. The voice came to him again, frustrated, and pronounced a name in his head in slow careful words.
 

Juggernaut.
 

Sergeant Green narrowed his eyes. He searched his mind for the definition. He thought he understood the word: Big and strong, or with an aggressive force. When young he always considered himself different from the other children. A desire to protect hung about him with a fierceness he found overpowering.

He fought the bullies in school and protected those who choose not to fight back. This personality came with uncanny ease. He joined the Marines despite his foster parent’s rants for him to find a safer career.
 

As he waited on the line for the fight, the inner voice continued to prod at his mind. The voice belonged to a female, and he learned her name. Joan. She told him his name again, coaxing him forward from his mortal sluggishness like an ambivalent tiger. Juggernaut, she called out, her voice gentle in his mind. Wake up.
 

After the battle, hopelessness assaulted him. Perched on his bunk in his room he cried in anger. The old angelic power infused his soul. He lifted his head. His brown hair, cut in a crew grew long, falling over his broad shoulders.
 

Power poured into him. Strength long locked up returned to his body. Silver armor covered his torso and large wings graced his wide back. The wings and armor almost made him pass out in shock. The thought floored him at first, its utter reality and audacity. Yet, he believed in God. Why would he think such creatures not real, him being an angel from Heaven?
 

He wondered why this secret remained hidden as his friends fought and died in Los Angeles. Joan though, told him not to attack on his own.
 

Heavy guilt weighted him down and he ached to remove the burden from his soul. The convoy passed by brick military buildings and metal Quonset huts. The tankers revved up the turbines and their power shook the ground. The convoy exited Camp Pendleton’s back gate within minutes and headed east.
 

Tobias Green, the angel Juggernaut, recalled those hard memories as he sat in his Hummer’s passenger seat. He wiped away a tear and said a silent prayer for his fallen brothers in arms.
 

Tobias Green glanced at the weapon he held with strong vascular hands. Joan ordered him to protect the colonel and insure his safe travel to Denver. They needed Colonel Andrews alive for the battle. The angel nodded in silence as he kept a wary eye out for the enemy.

31

General Temeculus bared his hideous teeth as he focused on the city beneath his gaze. The small strike force led by Wrath sped away in military vehicles stolen from a local base. The general looked north. His black clad troops assembled to attack San Francisco. He wanted the bay area also, not as much as he wanted Los Angeles and Denver. For the moment, he needed numbers for the battle in Denver.
 

 
“Lord Goth.”

Lord Goth arrived from the shadows, fell to one knee, and bowed his head. “My lord?”

General Temeculus approached his hideous headed herald. “I want San Francisco, Goth. On your journey north, recruit more souls for our true father’s army. Those who refuse, crucify them along the highway as a message to those thinking about trying to defy us.”

Lord Goth lifted his bovine head with horns caked in dried blood. His black eyes glittered. “I will fulfill your orders.”

“Take only humans, Goth. I need to make them stronger. I need for them to love the blood they spill,” he said. “I want them to hate, they must earn the third six upon their pitiful foreheads. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, my lord.”

General Temeculus pointed a claw-nailed finger over the city. “Go.”

Lord Goth rose to his feet, ran and leaped from the balcony. His black wings spread out from his back as he swooped low to the streets.

Temeculus wanted Joan to scramble in all directions. Joan fought hard in battle, she also proved to be a powerful tactician. He did not concern himself too much with the American president. Wallace followed Joan’s orders like a child eager to please a parent.
 

What other choice did the invasion leave him? The attack on Los Angeles exploded upon the earth and initiated horrors Wallace read about in a book created to maintain power over the mindless masses. The mortals did not expect such an attack. Bombs, bullets, jets, all wasted on beings from Hell, beings who died centuries ago. Temeculus reckoned Raymond’s mind incapable of fathoming the terror he faced.

Never would Wallace understand the long complex history behind the attack. Past hatreds needed to be satisfied, revenge waited in the wings like an impatient whore.
 

Neither did the president realize Joan hid a nasty old secret. The Battle of Seven Gates began with her. She and she alone performed one act, one act others suffered for. Satan lost his sanity due to the billions killed by the floods. He coerced the angels to split alliances down the middle.

God protected her. Joan escaped death, but their families suffered a permanent punishment. God did not send their loved ones to Heaven, but dispersed their souls into Oblivion. A cold, dark place, an existence Satan even feared. God needed someone to guard the back gate after the battle. Joan took the hint and escaped the poisonous whispers and her shame.
 

She accepted the job to defend the gate for all eternity, and cooled the many tempers in Heaven. Her semi banishment averted another war.
 

The fools across the planet did not understand. God created this particular gate before man ever set a toe upon the planet earth, before any mortal breathed the sweet air. Blind dumb luck placed the United States over the gate.

Temeculus leaped upwards and through walls made from crushed bone until he landed in a small room, dark and more crowded by his even darker presence. The cell seemed filled with a power held under control by a lock time kept secure.

“Are you awake?”

The Key stirred from the floor and sat up. She placed her back against the cold bone wall and remained hidden in the shadows. Her eyes glowed with a low white light. She settled her wary gaze upon the general. “I’m more awake than you are, Temeculus.”

The general squatted and produced an inimical grin packed with vicious teeth. “Always words.” The general slid his serpent tongue over his lips. “I’m going to kill you when this war is over, and hang your body from the pentagram of this cathedral.”

The Key held her gaze. “We will see about that, Temeculus, pretender to the kingdom of earth, and god of nothing.”

The general stood to his feet and lifted his wide hands. The room doubled like a blurred vision. He ached to reach down and snap her neck. “Your friends are coming to rescue you, Lucia. They will be surprised.”

The Key’s eyes took on a brighter glow. “Leave me.”

“Make room for your pals, Lucia.” The general turned and pounded a massive fist against the door. Thick bolts slid from latches. The door cracked open, the horror outside peered in, its ten thousand eyes blinked.
 

Temeculus swung the door wide, and paused. “Your little army will be defeated, Lucia.” He walked over the cell’s threshold and slammed the heavy ironwood door behind him.

32

Somewhere on an old battleground in Virginia, miles away from the nearest private home stood ten thousand soldiers in military formation dressed in uniforms camouflaged with dark and light gray shades. White berets sat on their heads pinned with golden angel wings bisected by a vertical sword. The soldiers waited in silence as the morning mist swirled around them.