Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) (22 page)

The demon, whose muzzle now washed in red gore, wallowed in the terror. He enjoyed the death he delivered upon the land created by God. Goth recognized one savior of humanity. He dwelled below in his mansion in Hell, where souls lived and served the universe one true creator forever. His eyes locked on the souls who screamed along the roads and ran from their homes.
 

Goth considered all humans worms. God’s creation, and a rampant pestilence like lice upon the earth.

Goth lifted his head. “Why run from your doom? Embrace my father in Hell and relish true glory. Stop and kneel to save yourselves, for when you kneel later, your heads will roll upon the ground.”
 

Still they ran in all directions. In the west, the sky turned a dark purple as the unnatural darkness spread towards the army lost in bloodlust.

Lord Goth replaced his bloodstained sword and licked the gore from his gruesome face with a long black tongue. His men removed the derelict cars left stranded on the road and siphoned gas from their tanks. Another group lined the Hummers and trucks in a neat convoy. Above his head sat a green signpost with directions to San Jose. Two hundred miles, stenciled in white bold letters along its front with arrows pointing north.
 

The demon bared his hideous blood stained teeth. He hoped the next towns would supply him with enough souls to thicken his ranks. The last few cities and towns disappointment him, he killed more than he kept.
 

“My lord,” a voice rose from behind Lord Goth’s wide back.

“Speak,” he said.
 

“The convoy is ready, sir. Transport trucks are also ready.”

Goth studied the captain’s work. Stolen commuter buses packed with converts headed south to Los Angeles. “Good, Captain Stolatii. Now give the order to move out.”
 

Captain Stolatii walked away and barked his orders. The demon nodded his horned head and turned his gaze north. Once he conquered San Francisco, his ultimate dream to invade Heaven would draw closer.

38

When Daisy Lane escaped Los Angeles, she never took a good long stare at Hell’s Cathedral. At two thousand feet high, the cathedral towered above the city like a middle finger thrown at both Heaven and humanity. The blood red sky brought an extra gloom to Hell’s Cathedral.
 

Daisy Lane and Okura lifted their eyes towards the dreadful skies. The monolith towered above their heads, crested by the rusted pentagram. Hell’s Cathedral oozed an evil so deep the black power held dominion over all Los Angeles.
 

Okura frowned. He zipped up the yellow jacket he wore. “My God, how high is Hell’s Cathedral?”

Daisy Lane lowered her head, a chill slid down her back. “Too high.”

Daisy wore black jeans and a long leather jacket with heavy motorcycle boots. Her golden hair, tied back in a ponytail, hung down her back. Her nose ran from the smoke filled air, she swiped her hand across her wet nostrils to no avail. She surveyed the shattered landscape. People ran into the fresh madness. Gunfire echoed off the destroyed buildings.
 

Okura pointed a finger upwards. “A pentagram?”

“Yes,” she said. Daisy glanced up again. She did not enjoy her nearness to the cathedral. Its powerful evil coated her soul like dirty motor oil. In the distance, screams echoed off walls.
 

Lunatic filled laughter rose from a detached voice and moans dragged out within the broken city. She frowned at the incredible stench. Death and roasted flesh, a combination so powerful her stomach lurched. The meager sunlight waned and brought a sour dread into Daisy’s lower belly she did not care for.
 

Smoke curled into the air as the two stood on a hill with the city spread out beneath their gaze. The freeways lay choked with dead vehicles strewn about helter-skelter. People crossed the battered cityscape to approach the cathedral like humble churchgoers. The mortals and dead who pledged their souls to Satan tormented the people who tried to flee.

Okura slid his hands into his blue jean pockets. His eyes squinted against the dying sun. The crimson orb sank beyond the western horizon, dragging hope and peace to other countries yet affected by Hell’s brutal hand. “The sunset is disheartening, Daisy.”

Daisy opened her mouth. The words she tried to say clotted her throat. Somewhere among the shattered buildings and madness, her family and friends remained either alive or dead. Her heart filled with a terrible ache at this knowledge. Despite her protesting heart, her priority sat high in a tower and not amongst the apocalyptic city.
 

“Madness, Okura. This is how the world will become if they conquer us.” She glanced at her partner. “And imagine, some people want to live like this and not reach the Eternal Kingdom.”

Okura stretched out a hand towards the bleak land below. “For some this is easier. One rule, serve the black prince.” He shook his head. His eyes raked the cathedral from its wide base to the battlements. The horrors perched around the pentagram remained dead still. “Do we wait for nightfall?”

“Complete darkness, Okura. Once dark, we go down invisible. We will be unseen to the mortals, but the living dead will glimpse our shadows. So be careful.”

Okura nodded and sat on a shattered concrete bench. Rusty rebar jutted from the masonry like the legs on a dangerous spider. He drew his knees to his chest, crossed his arms over his shins and began to rock back and forth. “I’m surprised people are still leaving the city.”

“A few tried to hide and are now coming out. Some will escape, most won’t,” Daisy Lane said. She squatted on her haunches. A breeze blew her long coat behind her like a cape. She took in the scenery with detachment. She wanted to save the people who ran and died before her eyes.
 

Okura closed his eyes, his lips pressed together in concentration. “I can’t sense the Key,” he said.

“I also tried several times with no luck.”

Okura opened his eyes as the final sunlight flickered out behind the rust red horizon. “Like a fallen Samurai, I think the sun will never rise again. Its beauty marred by this insanity.”

Daisy leaned forward and scrutinized downtown Los Angeles. With no power below, the humans used fire or generators. Flames popped to life amongst the ruins. The undead did not need such comforts. “General Temeculus can’t make the sun stay forever. How pathetic his followers are.”

Okura gasped as darkness shrouded Los Angeles. Blackness darker than molasses crawled from the cathedral and poured into the city.
 

“The evil,” Okura said.
 

Darkness ensued.
 

A pure blackness so deep, the angels shivered from its presence. Below, the fires sputtered and recoiled against the night. The screams died off as the two angel’s eyesight pierced the darkness in white light. Escapees ran for cover. The ones who approached Hell’s Cathedral did so in the blind and picked their way ahead.
 

A few flashlights broke the darkness with white light. Others used the scant light from cell phones and lighters as they called out to each other in fear of what lurked in the blackness.
 

Okura stood to his feet. He untied his white hair and allowed the mane to fall over his broad shoulders. His white Samurai armor appeared in sections over his muscular frame minus the helmet.
 

Daisy Lane changed and donned her silver helmet upon her head, its white bladed plume made her look fearsome. “Let’s go,” she said.

The two angels turned invisible and floated from the hilltop like feathers from a dove. They moved in silence. People hid in corners, prayed, and shivered against the cold brought on by the unnatural blackness. Their angelic feet did not touch the rubble-strewn ground as they moved through buildings and pillars, pass the sleep and awake, the frightened and the bold.

Hell’s Cathedral sat against the gloom. For the uninitiated, their eyesight became useless against the dark. Both angels picked out the undead Roman soldiers hidden in the shadows. They sought the darkness to feed, and feed they did, on both the living and the dead. Disembodied screams rose again and echoed to horrible crescendos in the long black night.

Okura narrowed his eyes as he floated past a building. He did not think angels became sick to the stomach, yet when he came upon a Hell soldier with a dead baby in hand, bitter bile rose in his throat. He seized his beautiful sword hilt until Daisy Lane’s armored hand closed over his sword hand. He glanced up. Daisy shook her head. The soldier slurped and smacked his lips as he ripped into the delicate flesh.
 

The monster’s head jerked upwards, its lower face glistening from the juicy meal. A plump thigh in his hand jiggled. He sniffed the air.
 

The angels moved on and covered a large distance until they settled behind a deserted mini mall. Daisy remembered the mall well. She entered the donut shop the morning Hell’s Cathedral erupted from the ground. Now Pete’s shop lied under tons of rubble and twisted metal.
 

Daisy paused. “Wait,” she said.
 

She crept ahead, checking each empty shop. She stopped and peeked around a corner, and up towards Hell’s Cathedral. With superb eyesight, she spotted the horrors encircling the pentagram.

She feared they might have to fight the Screamers on their escape from the gruesome cathedral. To her front, no soldiers stalked the gate. Nervousness flirted through her lower stomach. Enemy soldiers crept about in the night, as if they hunted for food, or a more dangerous foe. They walked with their swords drawn, and backs hunched low.

Daisy caught Okura with his sword drawn, he crouched against a burnt out police cruiser. His eyes scanned the area around him. “Psssst...”
 

Okura’s head lifted up.
 

Daisy motioned him over. He approached in a low duck walk.

“Are they expecting us?” Okura said. His silver blade flashed against some unseen light. “They are scattered about like they’re hunting.”

“Seems so,” Daisy said. She pointed her finger towards a particular tower. For a quick second, she thought a pale figure filled the tower’s black window.

“The Key.” Okura whispered low in his voice.
 

 
“I can’t tell because the body is too fuzzy.”

Okura shrugged his shoulders. “Well, only one way to find out, Daisy. We must go up.”

Daisy contemplated the move. Her heart beat hard in her chest. She gave Joan a hard time in Washington, D.C. about fear. Now she regretted her careless words. Daisy Lane pressed her lips together, and took a breath.

The figure appeared in the black window again and gazed out over the loathsome landscape. Its head turned and peered down at them. Its hands pressed against the face followed by a frantic wave.

Okura’s keen eyes zoomed in on the same figure. He gritted his teeth in impatience. “Daisy, we need to rescue her.”

“Shush,” Daisy said. Something scampered along the ground before them, rocks rattled. The hairs on her arms stiffened, her senses heightened. The pulse near her ears throbbed so loud its dull thump resembled a tiny drumbeat. “How can you be sure? This is not right, Okura.”

“Make a decision in seven breaths, Daisy Lane. Or go home.”

Daisy snapped a gaze at Okura. Her eyes flashed a radiant jade green. “I’m no coward.”

“I didn’t say you’re a coward. We go or we don’t.”

Daisy frowned. “We go, but move in silence.” Daisy swallowed. She stood along with Okura and prepared her mind for battle.

39

Daisy and Okura floated from the shadows. They kept hidden behind battered cars and tanks, buildings, buses, and jack knifed semi-trailers. The black night clung to their skin like leeches. Both angels held their swords ready in hand. They traveled over the deserted 110 freeway shrouded in eerie darkness.
 

Once they reached the black wrought iron fence, the two floated up along the horrid wall in silence. Their eyes beheld the skulls and crushed bones crowded into the cathedral wall as mortar.
 

As Daisy approached her destination, the figure in the window moved away, replaced by blackness with a hue dark enough to rival the innards of a closed casket. She floated up and through the window, followed by Okura. The Samurai stepped to her right once inside the small dark cell.

Okura said, “Where is she?” The gloom closed in on them.
 

Daisy’s grip tightened on her sword hilt. “Lucia,” she whispered into the thick blackness. A dim voice rose from within the cathedral. “The voice of the Key,” she said.

Okura scanned the cell. “She’s warning us.” He spun to face the window to their rear. Skulls filled up the empty space, blocking their escape.
 

The heavy wooden door to the cell shattered into dust and splinters. Before the two angels stood undead Roman soldiers. Wrath’s huge body loomed behind the fearsome soldiers. His mouth filled with white sharp teeth dropped open.
 

Okura drove his head through the skulls packed into the window. Once the bone powder cleared, he faced the Screamers crowded in behind each other. Their teeth gnashing in fury sickened his stomach. A high-pitched screech rose from their throats like nails dragged over a chalkboard. He jerked his head back just as a Screamer lunged to bite him.
 

Romans piled into the cell with Wrath trailing the unholy group.

“Drop through the floor. Now,” Daisy Lane said.

The two angels dropped through the floor. They plunged down into solid mortar built from crushed bones and dried blood. They came out through a high ceiling and landed on an obsidian floor. Both scrambled to their feet, eyes wide with swords held at the ready.

Daisy waited for the Key’s voice to rise again. Her radiant green eyes swept the large chamber decorated in furniture made from bones. Bones covered the walls along with skinned bodies. Some still moist and glistening against the red torch lights. A black stone table sat in the center with a pale leathery sheet stretched across the top.