Geometry, it’s a bitch.
I kick sideways, and curse my wings as I try to roll over. I’m face-down in feathers and it hurts bending my wing this much. I need to move, and I need to move now as the worm pulls more of its length up the tank to deliver a killing blow on me.
The worm is moving upwards, most of its body straight up in the air as it climbs higher. Hundreds of bodies sewn into its skin reach and grasp for handholds, and it looks like it could snap down at any instant. I can’t run back up the tank, and I can’t stay here for much longer.
I jump towards the worm, crossing the space in the air between us by gliding with my wings. I slam into the flesh-covered bottom of the worm.
I end up in the grasp of dozens of skinless, dead bodies along the bottom of the worm. Fleshless hands grab onto every part of me, some pull on my wings, and I’m trapped against the screaming and foul-smelling underside of the beast, hanging hundreds of feet in the air off a highly explosive tank of rocket fuel. They howl and scream in my ears.
As I said, it wasn’t the brightest plan I’ve had.
I push hands off of me, only to have new ones replace them, and it feels like a mosh pit is trying to strangle me alive and tear me limb from limb. The worm’s head looks around for my high above, moving right to left.
Nope, I’m not on the tank, big, dumb, and stupid.
A missile rockets between me at the tank, coming from high in the air and screaming past like a burning lance of fire. I follow the missile down into the dunes, where it lands in the scrub and explodes in a giant fireball. A fighter jet zooms by the top of the tank, turning in the bright blue morning air, little smoke trails curling off its wings. It’s twin afterburners thunder as it comes around for another pass.
Great, we got company.
If that missile would have hit either me or the tank it would have vaporized me instantly. I start to wonder how far this whole ‘born of fire’ thing will go with modern chemistry around. A pair of hands clasps around my neck, and I feel my welcome on the underside of the worm start to wear itself out.
I focus myself, calm my thoughts, my body getting pulled into the mass of skinless bodies holding onto me, tearing at my wings, strangling my throat, yanking my hair, and pulling me inside the beast.
The fighter jet makes another pass, coming in, firing its guns at us. A hundred holes are punched through the beast, bodies flying from the monster, each gigantic machine-gun bullet shredding a body as it tears through flesh and hellish sinew. A dozen holes appear in the tank, punched straight into the metal, jets of freezing gas shooting out into the air at high pressure.
I feel the chill from this distance, the bitter cold catching the air and turning it into ice. The limbs grabbing me pull, tear, and yank at my body, holding me against the worm and trying to tear me apart.
I disappear.
I open my eyes.
I am on a dune, sea grass around me, and the wind blowing gently through my wings. The screams of a thousand souls echo in the distance. I step to the top of the dune, readying my bow, and pulling a golden arrow from my quiver.
The beast hangs on the side of the fuel tank like a confused centipede, looking for it’s prey. It’s head spins around and it roars.
I pull the bowstring back and level my arrow at the beast. I feel my anger seep into the arrow, flowing like pure hatred into the golden tip next to my eye. I clear my thoughts, letting the malice seep forth, my unholy soul and the weapon becoming one.
Now, now is the time for hate.
The fighter jet swoops in for another pass, firing its guns at the beast again, punching another dozen holes in the tank, liquid oxygen billowing forth in large white plumes. The jet clears and turns for another pass, and I level my arrow at point on the tank where the beast is holding onto. The worm spins, grasps onto the tank with its body, and begins to crawl down.
“Monster, meet a pissed-off mother.”
I let my arrow sail free, and I just hear the thwip of the string as the glowing arrow flies into the sky. It takes a while, one second, two, three, and I watch as the arrow climbs slightly, and then starts to fall.
The worm starts to circle down, and my arrow sails for the middle of where his body curves and begins to come down the tank.
Four seconds, five. The worm’s tail starts to move up the tank, and I fear that when my arrow hits, most of the worm will be away from the impact-
The arrow hits, a glowing lance penetrating the thick metal of the liquid oxygen tank, sailing in one side of the metal and out the other. There’s a massive billowing white cloud of liquid oxygen as it jets out and comes into contact with the air, looking like a spraying aerosol of white smoke shooting out of the tank at super-high speed.
The worm is lost in the jet of white smoke, most of its body frozen solid to the tank. A half-second later, a dull orange thump and flash ignites the cloud and it’s a beautiful, horrible sight. The orange fingers of fire swell and flash inside the breach, and then rapidly travel around the sphere in every direction. Like a squashed orange, the tank heaves, compresses, and explodes in a massive fireball.
The flash hits me first, feeling like a wave of incredibly hot light, and I watch for a moment as the blinding orange fireball sails up towards the heavens. A half-second later, dune-by-dune, the shock-wave races towards me.
I don’t have time to move, and every bone in my body is jarred loose by the blast, sending me sailing through the air and sliding along the beach. It’s so loud I can’t hear it, and my vision is blurred as I feel the sand pile up around my wings as I tumble to a stop, noticing the unconscious body of War about thirty feet away. I’m left stunned and deafened, watching a gigantic orange fireball sail into the sky away from me.
Moments later, a long missile shoots up out of the ground, rockets into the bright blue sky, and beats the fireball into Heaven. My last few visions are of the billowing cloud of death blooming and petering out in the blue sky, and the beautiful missile sailing far, far away high above it. The missile’s smoke trail curves off in the wind, but the plume of its rocket motors are still as straight and true as an arrow shot towards the heart of darkness itself.
The world gets to live today.
CHAPTER XLII:
I Am So Weak
The sirens blare, and I pull myself from the sand. War still lies on the beach, not dead, but beaten for the time being. I’m reminded of the pictures of the bodies of soldiers strewn across beaches during wars when I see him, the billions of dead this beast caused, and the ocean full of tears he’s responsible for.
I walk past him, praying the world forgets about this monster.
I step up onto the dune, and the world has changed. The billowing towers of smoke from the missile launch and the fuel tank going up hang over the base, and the trail of destruction from the worm scars the base like the scene of an airliner accident. Soldiers run everywhere, emergency vehicles race about, and military vehicles drive down the roads of the base in columns, ready for battle.
I stumble off the beach, towards a pair of jeeps and an ambulance on a road nearby. Four soldiers level guns at me, and I walk towards them with my arms out and my wings folded, I’m too stunned and tired to care, and I’m not a threat.
“On the ground!” One of the soldiers shouts.
I kneel in the sand, and they move towards me, black rifles aimed at me.
They stand around me, eyes scared, fingers on triggers, gun barrels pointing at my body. “Who are you? Why do you have wings?”
“Wait!” A soldier from the road shouts, he’s one of the men from the gate that I rode in the jeep with. “She’s one of the good guys! She saved me and led that thing off!”
The group around me looks back, stunned, and the gate guard with the gas mask around his neck runs up, lifts me to my feet, and hugs me. “My God, thank you.”
“No problem,” I say, hugging him back, “happy to help.”
“What are you, some sort of angel?” He smiles at me.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I’m an angel.”
I point back towards the beach. “There’s another one back there, on the sand, be careful, he’s a demon from Hell. Never look into his eyes, and make sure he
doesn’t
wake up. He’s the thing that fell out of the sky.”
“How do we keep him from waking up?” The squad-leader next to me says.
“Pray for peace.” I say, rubbing my face.
The men scramble towards the beach, and the gate guard pulls me towards the road. The men around the ambulance spring to life, shouting. “We got wounded in the command center! Move!”
A terrible feeling hits me, and I begin running. I run across the scrub, over the trail the worm left, towards the piles of broken and shattered cars in the command center parking lot. The gate guard runs behind me, but I’m running faster than him, my fears echoing through me like a certainty I can’t shake out of my head. I run past soldiers, past paramedics, past people sitting in groups around cars crying and in shock from the terrible things they saw.
Bullet holes riddle the command center doors, and glass covers the ground. Several soldiers grab me as I run inside, restraining me, holding my wings, and forcing me to my knees. “Get her down!” Men with rifles level them at me, while others search the command center room by room. The doors to the control room are open and riddled with bullet holes.
There must have been a fierce firefight in here as Becks and his men tried to buy time to fire the missile.
The bodies of men in black litter the room, and they have rifles and machine-guns. They don’t look like soldiers from the base at all. I reach out and touch their souls, and their spirits are begging for release.
Soldiers and guards are grabbing me, pulling on my wings, holding me down. I’m barely aware of my captors as I query the dead.
They are full of hatred and bile. Their souls hiss and writhe with evil, twisting forms. I recognize the feeling, but not the men - these are servants of War. Each one comes from a different background and place on this world, but they all share the same madness and hatred for peace.
The souls howl and beg judgment.
I ignore them, and continue to pull against the men holding me down. The souls beg for judgment. I ignore them. Roam the world lost in the hellish throes of limbo for all time, monsters.
“Colonel!” I scream as I am restrained, and I’m crying again. “Colonel Becks!”
Soldiers carry a covered body on a stretcher out of the control room, and then another. I scream the Colonel’s name, and I’m crying as an officer walks towards me, his pistol drawn.
“Who are you?” He shouts. “Identify yourself!”
“She’s one of the good guys!” I hear the gate guard’s voice behind me. “An angel! Let her go!”
The officer keeps his pistol in my face. “Overruled, keep holding her! Who are you, what are the black wings for? Are those real? What was, that thing? Answers! Now!”
They walk Harris out of the control room in handcuffs, keeping his head down. He looks over at me, a sad look on his face. He’s crying, his hands covered with blood.
No.
I break free of the three men holding me down, and run into the control room. There’s blood all over, spent shell casings, and the smell of gunpowder hangs heavy in the air. Row after row of computer consoles were destroyed in the firefight, and the room is filled with smoke.
A group of paramedics surrounds the bloodied and bullet-riddled body of Colonel Anderson Becks. A doctor tries to stop the bleeding. “We’re losing him-”
I drop beside the Colonel, ignoring the doctors telling me to give him some room. He has been shot six or seven times, and the medics have his shirt open, his chest covered in blood, the doctors trying to keep him alive.
“Colonel!” I cry, shaking him, “My God, no!”
“Jess.” His eyes flutter open. “We did it,” Colonel Becks says with a smile, the blood running down his lip, “mission accomplished. Time to-”
“No!” I scream, shaking him. “Don’t die! Wake up! Wake up!”
I’m shaking him, men are holding me, doctors are pushing on me and telling me to back away, and there’s chaos in the room around us. None of it matters, just this moment.
“So cold-” His voice wavers, his eyes fluttering.
“Wake up!” I point at him as the men try to pull me off. “Wake up! Listen! I have one last thing to say to you!”
His eyes flutter open, and I put my forehead against his as I speak to him, eye-to-eye for one last moment. “When you see him, tell God to stop me from opening the book! This is your last mission, do you understand?”
“Yes…sir,” He nods, weakly. “Bye-bye, blackb-”
I’m holding his head, and I feel his soul float away. No, God, no. He was a good man who loved his daughter. All he wanted was to serve his country and make her proud. He never loved war, but he would defend what he loved with all his heart.
“We’re losing him!”
Men pull me away, and they give Becks’ chest a jolt from a defibrillator. The long beep tells me what I already know.
“Again!” The paramedics inject a long syringe directly into his heart. “Going for broke!”
It’s too late. I can’t stop crying. His soul floats above us, sad, lost, and wanting to be home. God, please…
“We lost him. The time is-”
Goodbye. Thank you. For the short time I knew you, you were my friend. I send Anderson Becks skyward directly to Heaven with all the love and tears that I have left in this body.
CHAPTER XLIII:
I Surrender
It’s been hours, I don’t know.
I’m sitting with a hood on my head and chains around my body, and none of it matters. I could disappear in a mere thought, but I want to be here for at least a little longer, to see if I can help the last man left alive from our mission, one of Beck’s soldiers, Harris. I know he is across from me, chained and hooded like myself, and I sense Azrael’s presence with us too. I can’t leave them behind, they have no way of getting home, wherever that is now.
So we sit together as captives, first in a truck, and then in a plane. It’s been hours since I moved, so I don’t know where we are, only that men are around us with guns, tasers, and all sorts of other weapons. They took us all prisoner in their fears, and I forgave them, for our mission is done and they did not know the better.