“So you work for them?” Jeff rubs his forehead with a rag. “You are their, like personal angel? Of death?”
“I don’t work for them,” I say, “I have to. If I don’t, my body, my future body in some hospital somewhere, not even in this time, will die. I promised I would help them release themselves from God’s book, and we would end War for all time. Kill him. Kill the Horseman named War.”
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” Vijay says, his shirt covered with blood, his hands sewing up Adam’s chest. “It should be mankind that ends war, we are the ones who have suffered enough under it.”
“Him,” I say, “War is a him. He’s too powerful now for even God to control.”
“God shall amaze you if you give him a chance.” Vijay says, leaning away from Adam’s chest. “The boy is very strong, and his wounds are healing once we removed the arrow from his chest. I am hopeful he will live, God willing.”
I stand and walk over. Adam’s chest is bare and bandaged. Blood is spattered across his white wings. He is lying there breathing shallow breaths, his head to the side.
I push his hair from his face. “I’m sorry Adam. I never meant for you to be hurt. Please forgive me.”
“Jessica,” Vijay says, “I have done all I could. It shall be morning soon, and we are trapped here another day. Death comes when the sun rises, it is what the army said.”
I stand there, breathing heavy. “I’m sorry you couldn’t get away. But this is all over the world.”
“Take care of him, and if I don’t come back, tell him I’m sorry.” I pick up Adam’s sword, and strap it to my left hip. I pick up his quiver of glowing arrows and put it over my back. I grab the angel’s golden bow.
“I’m going to fix this once and for all.”
CHAPTER XXXVII:
I Stand Alone
I’m standing in a desert beside a freeway.
Cars pass me by. Some honk their horns.
Going one way, signs for casinos in Vegas, and going the other, roadside diners and attractions in Death Valley. A ribbon of blacktop cuts through hundreds of miles of desert scrub in all directions. I know this road well from my younger days, a stretch of Interstate where people head out on Friday and come back on Sunday to a place in the desert where they can get away from life for a while.
While I know the road, I remember we haven’t been by this stretch today, and since there is only one road between LA and Vegas, they have to be coming my way. When I see Colonel Beck’s SUV crest the hill, I raise my arm. They stop thirty yards in front of me in a cloud of dust, and I walk up to the truck.
“How nice you could re-join us!” Becks leans out of the window. “We are on a tight schedule, I hope you are-”
“I make my own schedule.” I say, opening the back door and handing Azrael the angel’s sword. “I picked this up for you.”
“Nice weapon, Seraph!” He smiles. “ A true sword of Heaven. A gift from God?”
“In a way.” I throw the bow into the back seat, and place the quiver on the floor.
“Hey, Blackbird.” Becks is out of the truck beside me, looking me over. “What’s with the getup?”
“Armor, of Hell or something. It’s a bit slutty but it works. Don’t blame me. Do we have a spare pair of pants?”
He smiles at me, cars speeding by us. Another car honks its horn as it speeds by and I give it the finger. “I’m not a stripper, douche-bag!”
Becks laughs.
“What is so funny?”
“You look so silly in that. Like someone from World of Orcwars or something.”
“I hate you,” I say, struggling to get in the SUV. “Just help me get my wings in the truck.”
In five minutes we are back on the road again.
I’m quiet, but I keep myself awake as we drive through LA and up the coast. There’s a lot to see on the drive, but I’m quiet. I have a lot going through my head. Azrael sleeps for most of the trip, lucky him. I can’t hope to understand the magic I have been given, I can’t control it, nor can I predict where I will end up next. With every jump, I’m less and less in control. Green freeway sign after freeway sign passes by, exit after exit, and town after town after we get out of LA.
How little all of them will know today, we’re saving all of your lives, maybe, thank you, but you’ll never know.
“How much longer?”
“Thirty minutes.” Becks is in the front passenger seat. “Everyone wake up, we are very close to the base. Harris, how is our electronic cover?”
Harris is in the seat in front of me, glued to his laptop. “Holding steady. NSA net is either treating us as civvie traffic, or we are off the net. It could be this truck is so damn old we can’t track it. Red light cams will check our plates though, at this hour in the morning, I think we got about three hours before the AM shift gets in and we are flagged as an out-of-state vehicle of interest with a high passenger load. Local police will be dispatched to tail us and do a routine stop, at which point the dashboard cams in the cruiser will ID the lot of us and send it all back to DC. That will be bad, very bad.”
“In three hours we will be launching a missile into outer space against our government’s wishes. Hard to think this is not even our world, it all looks so familiar. It’s not dead though, all the things I saw, those terrible things. Hopefully they will never know any different.” Becks is working up front, loading weapons and keeping it inconspicuous. “You two in the back, see if God can keep us from getting stopped by the Highway Patrol in the next hour or so.”
“I have never prayed my way out a ticket, Colonel,” I say, laughing out of nervousness more than anything else. “So watch your driving.”
Azrael wakes and yawns, stretching, and rubbing his eyes.
“Morning Azrael. Hey, Blackbird. Want to tell us where you went?” Becks rummages through his pack in the front seat. “Obviously it was more important than-”
“Just enough.” I sigh, looking over at Azrael. “Can you control these wings, or do they hate me?”
“Seraph,” he says, smiling, “you are learning. You have much more to learn about them, and many things you cannot even comprehend with your mind so used to the way you lived on Earth. They take you where you need to go, in a way.”
“Riddles,” I say, “great. I met them, King Tanas and his friend Heinrich, the white and black riders. A power-mad king and the merchant of death, I suppose.” I turn to Azrael. “They were the ones who cut your wings off.”
He nods. “As I supposed so. Never was there a time when the two of them ever trusted me, and their hatred and malice knows no bounds. I should guess they gave you the wings so they could control you, to involve you in their scheming?”
I nod. But I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t. Despite betraying the two horsemen, I am still in debt to them, and I still need to open the book. I need to save myself, and my children. I can’t let them grow up without their mother. The only way to get there is to open the book and do what they ask me to.
The fact that I am here now trying to destroy the space rock that War is going to use to kill every living thing in the world doesn’t bother me. The scion needs to be destroyed in any outcome. One less of War’s toys means billions of people will live to see tomorrow.
I will help the Horsemen slay War, but we need to talk. I feel bad not telling Azrael, he sits right next to me knowing none the better, and I feel like a traitor to my friends. Here I am helping them save the world, yet I have other secret plans to help those trying to help beasts of pure evil trying to conquer it.
It’s the least of all of the evils, I suppose. I have no other options, and sadly, King Tanas and Heinrich are more powerful allies than a bunch of soldiers and a wingless angel. I call them allies, but they are not my friends.
How is it going to be to see the face of God and open the forbidden book in his face? Will he strike me down in his wraith? There are parts of this plan I have no idea how they are going to work out, if at all.
A long quiet drive later and we are slowing down by the side of a road.
“Base fence on our nine-o-clock,” Becks says, “find a spot up ahead and pull over. Harris, disable the perimeter security in this sector for thirty minutes.”
“Easy when we have the password and overrides,” Harris smiles, “kinda stupid breaking into a place you have the keys to. Motion sensors deactivated, LF radar is spoofed. IR cams are pointed, one sec, okay pointed in another direction. This sector is wide open, but watch it, from the base commander in our world, he says there are normally ATV patrols through here, with dogs, so if we meet base security it will get hairy.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to.” Becks attaches a long silencer to his pistol. “But let’s be prepared.”
We stop in the brush and forest beside the road, and we work our way up to the fence. Predictably, there is a sign every ten feet saying, “Warning! Federal installation. US Air Force. Trespassers will be shot!”
It feels good to be out of the truck again, and I am stretching. Colonel Becks points at me when my wings extend out about fifteen feet to each side during one of my stretches, and Azrael laughs.
“Stow the wings, Blackbird!” Becks tries to push one down.
Harris tosses me my bow, and I sling it with the quiver. I slide my sword into place. Azrael checks Adam’s sword out and smiles at me.
In moments, we’re through the fence, although I have to stop halfway through when my wings get caught on the chain link, and the group ends up cutting a hole twice the size for my wings. Still, it was a major ouch moment, and I picked every tuft of feathers caught on the fence and shoved them into my pocket.
Those are
my
feathers, thank you.
We creep through the forest and through a field of brush, with the base’s main camp coming to life a couple hundred yards away. We angle away from the buildings, and back onto the more deserted parts of the base, making our way to a dry drainage canal that runs towards the missile launch complex. We crouch run for what I think are miles, zig-zagging along the canal, avoiding mud, and ducking through large metal corrugated pipes that run under the base’s roads.
We hear a helicopter, and everyone hits the dirt, rolling to the side of the canal and trying to stay as hidden as possible. I have to pull Azrael down and against me. The helicopter passes nearly overhead and we all lie still for an agonizing amount of time.
I whisper. “You think they saw us?”
“No idea,” Becks says, “can’t worry about it now, keep moving.”
We are running again, peering out of the canal for soldiers, and trying to keep as hidden as possible.
The missile launch complex is another secure area inside the base, so Harris works on his laptop while everyone rests in the canal. It’s not that big of an area, and most of it is against the water, so the drainage canals look like the only way in and out. Bad for us, they are also one of the most secured areas as well, along with a large launch complex control center that overlooks all of the launchers. The control center is our target.
“This security is tight,” Harris says, “seriously, this is nothing like what I was told.”
“Break it,” Becks says, working his way to Azrael and me. “How are you two holding up?”
“It is good to be out in the open air again, running and doing things,” Azrael says, “though at time I feel we act like rats or thieves in our current situation.”
“Nature of the business,” Becks says and smiles, “and Jess?”
“Sore as hell,” I sigh, “tired, and grumpy. My usual morning self. This bow is a pain in the butt to crouch-walk with.”
A shadow looms over us. A large black horse peers down into the drainage ditch. No, no, no.
“Go!” Backs is hissing at it. “Shoo! Get out!”
“Who’s horse is that?” Azrael smiles. “Someone on this base? He is a beautiful animal.”
I stand, the field around us empty except for the horse and the missile complex’s red and white striped security perimeter 50 yards away. Guard towers loom in the distance, and the morning light starts to make us glow.
“The black horse, he belongs to one of the Four Horseman.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII:
All Hell Breaks Loose
The sirens are ear-splitting. Everyone loads their weapons.
“Nice horse.” Azrael stands and walks beside the beast.
The sirens echo louder. I can barely make out what our people are shouting. “Check for soldiers!” Becks screams. “You two get down now, they will be coming any minute!”
It’s like a meteor streaking through the sky on this perfect blue morning. It arcs down from the heavens leaving a fiery trail of smoke behind itself, screaming and popping through the air like the death throes of a meteor before it impacts...the ocean. The ocean about two miles out explodes into a massive column of white water billowing off into the air.
The sound of the explosion and shock wave hit us seconds later. It’s so powerful it jars my teeth.
“What the hell!” Becks is pulling me down, and we’re all staring at the arcing path of smoke hanging in the air above the base. “What the hell was that?”
“War.” I’m stunned. I can’t even think. “The Scion of War is here.” I look up at the black horse. “The others can’t be far behind. The Four Horsemen are here.”
“Radio chatter is all over the place, one second!” Harris shouts over the din. “The sirens are for the airspace violation and the crash, they think it’s an airliner. The base is on code red, but we got an opening in the confusion.”
“Change in plans.” Colonel Becks gets up and points at the missile complex’s front gate. “Everyone, run to the gate, we are going in through the front door!”
It’s madness.
We’re running through the field, and the guards at the gate are holding up their hands, talking on their phones, and shouting orders to trucks passing through. They notice our group running towards them about fifty yards out, and one proceeds to challenge us, raising his rifle. Three other guards at the gate raise their rifles as well.
“Stop, stop where you are, the complex is on lockdown!”
“Security pass-code lima, two, niner!” Harris shouts. “Identification phrase echo charlie alpha two one!”
The second guard at the gate steps out. “Pass-code accepted. Who are you people?”