Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

Love and protection filled her up like warm milk and sunshine. She opened herself to the experience, did not debate or fight against her change as Joan did hours earlier. Madness showed its hand and she accepted the rushed violence. What other choice did she have? Life or death depended on her actions.
 

Death would wait.
 

Daisy attacked. She hacked through the Screamer’s ugly flesh as they crammed their way through the broken display window. Near the ceiling, the white forms transformed into winged people dressed in white robes armed with long thin swords. Guardian angels sent to protect their clients. She understood their presence but where the thought came from baffled her. Distant memories echoed their existence to her.
 

“Take the family out. Just take them out the back door,” Daisy said to the guardian angels.
 

The Screamers outnumbered them. Yet Daisy, assailed by their terrible stench and squeals, fought on. Liquid filth splashed her beautiful armor as her help swung down from the ceiling. The guardian angels lacked the stamina for a drawn out fight, but they fought hard enough for their people to escape harm.

“Hold them off, I’ll get them out.”

Daisy spun towards the family. “Run and we will protect you,” she said in Spanish.
 

The family turned and hustled out the building’s rear exit. Daisy followed them into the cold air. The Guardian angels guided the family along an invisible path to escape the Screamers.
 

The Screamers stopped their chase and refused to go beyond a certain distance from the black cloud above their horrible heads. A half-mile out from the angelic skirmish, people ran on. The guardian angels made a path for the family with Daisy Lane close behind the group.
 

Daisy followed the family until they reached safety. The guardian angels retreated from the battlefield once the angel herded the family together in a mini mall parking lot. The beings from Heaven stared at Daisy in shock. Some smiled. Others cried and flew off to find their clients. A few settled down around her.
 

Overhead the dark cloud continued to spread. Red explosions rolled from the clouds, lightening flashed and the Screamers formed a huge perimeter above the downtown Los Angeles area.
 

Daisy faced the beautiful creatures from Heaven. She fought to catch her breath. Her armor stained in blood still gleamed. “My God.”

“Come to me,” the voice said in her head. “Come to me, this is not over.”

Daisy’s eyes fell upon the winged beings around her. They wore the purest white robes with wide gold sashes around their waists, not armor like the one she wore. Long thin swords hung at their hips, their faces remained serene. One reached out and touched her shoulder.
 

“Do not think, this is only a dream,” Daisy said.

“No Dream, Daisy. Now hurry, time is running out,” the voice said to her.

Daisy turned to survey the ruined city. Buildings burned in the distance. Acrid smoke filled her nostrils and the Screamers overhead ceased their horrific noise. They floated in the foul air, their black eyes lost in some dark abyss. The streets, once crowded with rush hour traffic, sat choked with abandoned vehicles and ripped bodies. Blood drained into the gutters by the gallons.
 

Daisy turned away from the apocalyptic scene. She weaved through the angelic crowd who gazed at her in awe. She placed her axes in their loops at her waist. Her actions came natural as distant memories bubbled up from her mind. She wanted to get away from the madness, gather her senses and come back to kill them all.

Daisy sprinted off. Her white wings outstretched from her back. She jumped into the air and took flight. Tears fell from her eyes. Below her, people continued to run. The clouds overhead, dark and bleak, sent a cold wind fouled by sulfur against her face. She banked and headed east, headed to find the voice and the answers for the sudden change in her once simple life.
 

11

United States President Raymond Judd Wallace vomited. He frowned at the bitterness in his mouth as he knelt over the clean porcelain toilet. He coughed, and his stomach tightened. He heaved a second time. Raymond lifted his head, dizzy and light from the toilet. Tears slid from his hazel eyes and rolled over his cheekbones.
 

He stood and fought to regain his composure before he entered his war room to face the terrible, unbelievable news from California.

Raymond reached into the medicine cabinet for the mouthwash. He opened the plastic container with shaky hands, poured the frosty green liquid into his mouth, and gargled until his inner cheeks burned. He spat green froth into the sink. In the mirror, he checked his pale face with swelled pouches underneath his eyes. He would order the presidential makeup artist give him some color to make his pale jowls appear robust and confident.
 

Raymond walked from the bathroom and entered a side office. He sat on a deep purple Victorian chair, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Five presidential staff members died the moment the news broke about the west coast incident. Three died from heart attacks, one succumbed to shock. One overdosed herself with Valium.
 

Those deaths angered him. Their weakness and fear became a black mark on his administration.
 

He remembered his CIA director. The big man grasped his chest, his face reddened before he collapsed to the thick carpet decorated with the Seal of the President of the United States.

 
The information came to them in pieces. As CNN reported the Los Angeles chaos on national television, more people killed themselves.
 

President Wallace ran a heavy hand through his steel gray hair. He wanted to scream and cuss as he read the reports printed on onionskin paper and stamped top secret. One report mentioned a mysterious black cloud above downtown Los Angeles, and monsters falling from the sky. Eyewitnesses recounted angels who fought these same creatures.
 

Demons and angels became nonsense to him. He surmised a gas line exploded or a hallucinogenic gas attack executed by terrorists disrupted the city.
 

Wallace ordered an emergency session and told his staff to give him fifteen minutes before they met in the war room. Within those fifteen minutes, he vomited up his fear and did his best to collect himself. He called in his beautician. She powdered his face with enough makeup to strengthen his appearance. Once complete, he left the Victorian chair and headed to the war room.
 

President Wallace, composed and ready, adjusted his dark blue Brooks Brother’s suit. His deep-set hazel eyes owned dark circles as if he endured a restless sleep. He stopped at the war room closed doors. He nodded towards two Secret Service agents who opened the double doors for their president.

President Wallace entered the crowded room and walked with confident strides to a high backed black leather chair. He opted to stand before the twenty men and woman who comprised his top aides from all the armed forces. Before him sat his presidential emergency team dressed in multicolored uniforms. Medals gleamed off the lights in the room. Their faces, etched with worry lines and tight in fear, revealed how horror ran among them.
 

“What’s going on?” Wallace said. “And what are those things attacking us?”

General Atkinson stood, his face paled as he held a red folder in one hand. “Sir, at this moment we are trying our best to answer those questions. We are calling up the California National Guard including the 75
th
Ranger Regiment. The Marines and Air Force are forming up as we speak. The Rangers will take some time to deploy from Fort Lewis, Washington. The Marines are ready to move in from Camp Pendleton.”

“What is the plan? CNN said monsters fought people wearing all white, and these people retreated. Did a gas main explode or some terrorist set off a chemical psychological attack?”

A man stood, dressed in a white shirt, black tie and black pants. Once he spoke, his voice trembled and conveyed what most experienced in the room. “Sir, the report in my hand, reads like some cheap magazine. Angels fighting against monsters in Los Angeles streets must be a hallucinogenic attack with gas.”

President Wallace turned to his scientific advisor. “Tell me, Morrison, what played on the CNN clip? What fell from the sky? The reports sitting before you are from reliable sources on the ground.”

“Maybe the Chinese are attacking us somehow. Give my staff a chance to verify all this apocalyptic stuff. These stories cannot be real.”

A tall brown-skinned woman at the table stood and rolled her eyes at the scientific advisor. “Sir, the Chinese are not attacking us. They are trying to figure out what is going on over here. Their satellite screens lit up as if we are about to launch a nuclear missile against them,” she said. “They are prepared to attack and we reassured them no nuclear attack is about to occur.”

Wallace faced his Presidential Advisor Patricia Jones. “What happened, Jones? What closed off our entire west coast and is making its way here?”
 

“A Globe Master is up, sir, to answer your question.”

President Wallace nodded. “Put them on.”

Patricia Jones pressed a button on the long table. Bose speakers embedded in the ceiling turned on with high definition clarity. “Sectarian One, you’re a go.”

Colonel Moss Lindsey and his entire crew sat buckled in a BOING 767 AWACS. The AWACS rattled from heavy turbulence as they headed towards the black clouds perched over Los Angeles.
 

Colonel Lindsey steadied the heavy AWACS controls. He stared at his copilot, Captain Darleen Straton and shook his head. He faced storm clouds before, hundreds. After twenty years as an Air Force pilot, what he faced made him want to retire. The clouds in their path swelled. Lightening flickered like broken fingers within the dark mass they approached.
 

He blinked his eyes several times and rubbed them. He pointed out the cockpit window at what sat to their front. “What is that?”
 

She returned his gaze, her face ashen. “Are those people?”

Colonel Lindsey scrutinized the clouds for a solid minute. Twisted bodies appeared amongst the dark clouds. Fear dried his mouth. His heartbeat pounded hard in his ears and for a second his thoughts froze.
 

“Colonel Lindsey, this is the president speaking.”

“Hello, sir.”

“Don’t rush, colonel. What’s out there?”

“The clouds are breathing, swelling, and bodies are in the clouds, several thousand bodies. All bodies…some are fighting and being ripped apart by things.” Colonel Lindsey tried not to scream. Bodies floated outside the plane’s Perspex window.
 

Lindsey’s eyes beheld horned beasts, some fat and some skinny. Others moved hunched over. Their figures covered in shiny red liquid, while others scurried about adorned with several arms and legs attached to their forms.
 

“Monsters, sir,” he said. His tongue became cottony. He swallowed hard to force down his fear. “Sir, I’m going to get in closer, I can’t believe this.”

Colonel Lindsey pushed the controls forward, the AWACS eased ahead and buckled from the tremendous turbulence. Lightening flashed and the bodies became more frantic. They gyrated in horrible broken rhythms. The monsters wore dark grins. Some urged the pilots forward.

Colonel Lindsey sucked in air as the BOING 767 plunged into the black mass spread above the city. The AWACS shook hard from the turbulence, enough to jostle loose machine tightened rivets from the frame. Equipment sparked. An electrical fire ignited somewhere within the plane, filling the interior with its blue-arc scent.
 

Distant screams joined by horrific moans poured into the plane from outside as they flew deeper amongst the clouds and closer to the crater near downtown Los Angeles.
 

“What’s happening, Colonel Lindsey? Talk to me.”

“Sir,” he said.
 

Bodies bumped against the cockpit window. A naked woman hit the glass like a mosquito. She clawed at the thick Perspex, her nails created a high screech, leaving bloody scour marks against the surface. A grinning monster snatched her away. Lindsey broke into a sweat. The strong urge to pull up the plane and escape the madness overcame him.

“Darlene, we’re out of here. Go. Go.”

President Wallace leaned over the table. “Talk to me, son.”

“The bodies, sir. They’re everywhere.” He pulled back on the throttle, the huge turbine engines kicked out its thrust. The plane began its sluggish ascent while battered by sudden high winds. He clenched his teeth. The AWACS struggled upwards and rattled so hard a deep pain throbbed in his head.
 

A shadow formed before the plane. A rider mounted on a pale horse broke from the black clouds. In one hand, he held a tremendous black shield with a bloody pentagram painted on its front. In his right hand he held a rusty broad sword, the hilt wrapped in a blood stained cloth. The mounted horror drew back the sword and paused as the large plane approached. He swung down, the blade crashed into the cockpit. The AWACS turned into a fireball over the city.

President Raymond Wallace balled his hands into fists as distorted screams crackled over the speakers. “Call everyone. I want this thing stopped now. Now.”

12

Joan cleaned her home. She stared at the family portraits lined along the hallway wall. In one, she, Charles and William, posed for a Christmas portrait. Her boy wore his red sweater decorated with brown reindeers harnessed to a sled. His bright smile jumped out at her. Charles, who stood behind them, stared into the camera.
 

Joan made her bed and ran her hands over the white comforter to smooth out the lumps. Her spacious home appeared neat and perfect. The dishes in the kitchen cabinet placed the way she liked, organized. Her plants, soon to die, sat near the sunniest windows. She cleaned her office, dusted down the desk and computer, and emptied out the trash.