Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

Joan tried to soak her world up and take a few good memories with her on the strange journey she faced. She also fought to hold tight to her sanity.
 

She stood in the kitchen and inhaled the sweet spicy scents. The oregano, cinnamon, and Spanish paprika created an aroma she loved. She touched a wine bottle perched in its rack, ran her thumb over the rough cork. Her eyes flitted over the rose bushes in the backyard ready to burst open for the spring. They would spill their brilliant pinks, yellows, and reds to the world within two months. She doubted she would be around to enjoy her private spring rose show.
 

She walked into William’s room and stared at his walls covered in glossy posters decorated with superheroes in various stances. His television stand sat in one corner with his Play Station 4 console tucked underneath and the controllers placed on top. She even made his bed, folded his clothes, and placed them away in his drawer. The room sat neat and clean. Real, she surmised, but not real to her.
 

Weirdness assaulted her as if she dwelled in another reality she found difficult to grasp. She walked toward his desk covered in toy soldiers. She picked one up and slipped the green plastic soldier into her blue jeans back pocket.
 

An hour ago they crashed into Los Angeles like a firebomb. The noise floored her, and she took a few minutes to reel in her senses after the shock wore off. Once she crawled to her feet, the name Daisy Lane popped into her head as if her mind opened an old yellow envelope filled with names scrawled on ancient paper. She goaded this angel to leave Los Angeles as quick as possible.
 

“We will get the chance to battle them, Daisy. But for now run. Run as fast as you can, girl. Tell them all to run for now,” she said to the air.
 

Joan left William’s room and went into the kitchen to stare out the window. Morning sunlight worked through the clouds fat with precipitant rain. Distant screams rose in her neighborhood. The horrific news worked its way to hometown America, the screams told her so.
 

Joan found herself unable to sleep once she left the Roaner Building and arrived home. Her conversation with Michael frightened her. Her past life turned into an event she found hard to believe.
 

She took a hot shower to both clear her mind and relax her enough to sleep. When she stepped out naked and slippery wet, she realized the changes in her body, changes on a scale to rival a Michael Angelo’s sculpture.
 

Her breasts, still small, became firm and perky. She stretched her arms out before her and smiled at the hard muscles in her shoulders. Her stomach muscles rippled like a washboard, the stretch marks from her pregnancy with William no longer visible. She would miss her stretch marks, a sign she once carried a precious life inside her.
 

The angel ran her fingers over her diamond-chiseled abdomen. Her leg muscles hardened like a mountain climber and her butt broke its friendship with gravity.
 

Joan’s mind drifted to her husband’s family. Her adopted parents, long dead, left her with no immediate family to claim as her own. She planned to visit Charles’s parents, her last link to her man and son.
 

She walked through her home and stepped into the living room. For a few seconds she gazed at Charles and William framed in a picture. She lifted one up, gave the portrait a tender kiss, and returned the silver frame to the coffee table. Joan plucked her iPhone off the coffee table and approached the front door.
 

Joan opened the door to face a street packed with neighbors in different states. Some gawked at the cloudy skies in huddled groups while others cried. Most stuffed luggage and personal items into cars to flee their homes. She shook her head, closed the front door, and walked through the house and into the backyard.
 

She thought about her wings and before the thought slipped away, they hung on her back huge and beautiful. With a steady hand, she reached out to touch her left wing.
 

Her fingers played over the silk soft feathers. Amazement caused her eyes to glitter. She reached back with her right hand and caressed the elbow on her wing covered in white downy feathers.
 

Joan stretched her wings behind her and admired their strength. She flapped them twice and recalled her childhood. As a child, she would flap her arms like some magnificent bird and leap into the air to land a second later on the grass lost in sweet laughter. Her wings resembled a huge dove. Above her, the clouds sat low and fat with rain. Sunlight began to wink out in the sky.
 

The loamy dampness in the yard perfumed the air as a cool breeze brushed her face. She turned around to give her home a long gaze.

“Before you go.”

Joan’s wings fluttered, her stomach lurched. She spun around to face the archangel Michael. “What now?” Her breath came out ragged, and her heartbeat quickened from the archangel’s sudden appearance.

Michael tapped a forefinger against his full lips. “Follow me. I almost forgot one last thing.” He spread his powerful wings from behind him and took flight into the air. Dead leaves rustled in his wake, swept up in a tiny dust devil.

Joan admired Michael’s speed and power. Michael took to the air with a controlled burst and smoothness she wanted to master. Within seconds her golden armor covered her body. She deployed her wings. The gray skies packed with storm clouds thickened overhead as she moved her wings to loosen her muscles. She bent her knees, and gave her wings two hard flaps.
 

Her feet left the ground. She took flight with a powerful burst.
 

Joan sucked in breath as her body hurtled upwards. The world beneath her dropped away fast. Her house, her colorful rose bushes, her neighbors who stood outside their homes, all miniaturized. Her body jetted skyward like an uncontrolled bottle-rocket.
 

Up and up she went. Her jump off the Roaner Building’s roof involved an easy downward float. She drove her car home after her talk with Michael. This new method to get around excited her. She needed to stop her ascent and follow the archangel. In short, she needed to learn how to fly.
 

Joan slowed her speed. By the time she gained control, Georgia resembled a greenish brown carpet beneath her caligae-covered feet. The cool clouds sat just above her head. White lightening flickered behind her. She set her jaw and pressed her thick lips together in concentration.
 

The angel inhaled a deep breath laced with blue electricity. She dropped towards the earth fast, with her wings out at her sides. Joan pulled her wings back and dove like a hawk from the skies. The speed exhilarated her and pumped adrenalin through her veins as she followed the path Michael left for her.
 

Joan became a silver flash against the gray rain fattened clouds. Michael raced ahead, southwest over Atlanta. The scene below took her breath. Atlanta, Georgia captivated her. The architecture built to symmetrical perfection blended with the hill country on the city’s edge. Her heart pounded hard in her chest as she trailed the archangel, he, a bright golden streak over the city like a comet. Michael blasted past the CNN Headquarters and dove towards the Georgia Dome and through its roof like a ghost.
 

Joan closed her eyes and rushed towards the dome. Within seconds she slipped through the roof. She opened her eyes and sped by metal support beams and hot spotlights. Green artificial turf spread out beneath her. She never thought she would ever experience the Georgia Dome from this angle. The flight down from its curved roof towards the gridiron made her giddy.
 

The archangel Michael stood on the fifty-yard line dressed in full armor. His sword in hand, every light in the dome gleamed against his golden armor.

Joan landed before the archangel, folded in her white wings. She faced him. He studied his beautiful sword as if to inspect its honed edge. She glanced around at the massive arena. The Georgia Dome remained empty save for a gray haired guard slumped in a seat high above the field.
 

She reminisced about the games she attended in the dome. The salty hot dogs, the crowd’s fanatical roar and the hot buttered popcorn brought back teary memories. At a game, William once wiped the grease from his tiny hands on her Atlanta Falcons jersey. She missed the ice-cold sting from soda in her throat. She remembered with fondness Charles’s stale beer breath. Memories.
 

Memories she took for granted and soon may become distant good memories to her and many other people if she did not get her head together.
 

Michael smiled at Joan. “God ordered me to come down here and make sure you understood how to fight.” He twirled the sword in his right hand. “Do you remember the art, Joan?”

Joan turned away from the guard and focused on Michael’s face. His eagle helmet glowed against the spotlights. “I’m not sure.”
 

She drew her sword with her right hand, the blade hissed against the scabbard’s leather interior as she brought the gladius out to light.
 

She readied the Heaven made steel. Her pulse raced so fast her ears started to ring.

Joan began to conjure up the days when she did fight. How many years passed since her last battle? She played her thumb along the jewels embedded in the hilt, purple, and green, yellow, red, and sky blues, along with many others. The Georgia Dome brought back feint memories when she fought in the Roman Coliseum. Ancient bloody battles echoed in her mind just enough to send a fresh chill down her spine.
 

Her eyes beheld Michael’s placid face, the sword he manipulated in his hand, and his slow movement. She followed him, captivated like a sparrow mesmerized by a dancing net.

“First, you need to calm down,” he said.

Joan nodded, transfixed by the way he moved. Her nervous eyes darted to his muscled legs and the muscles in his huge forearms each time he twirled the blade. He passed the sword from one hand to the other. Her eyes became heavy. Michael’s sword gleamed underneath the bright lights, the edge seeming to ripple. His moves lulled her mind into a dangerous sluggishness she found irresistible.

The hard blow bounced against her helmeted head before her eyes registered his attack. The punch knocked her back to the ten-yard line. She landed on her back, the air blown from her lungs.
 

Joan coughed, her lungs burned. A powerful ache throbbed in her head as hot anger flared up within her. She sat up, blinked her eyes, and recovered from the closed fist to the jaw. She scrambled to her feet and readied her gladius as Michael retook his spot at the fifty-yard line.

“Are you going to sulk, or fight,” he said.

Joan bit her bottom lip in concentration. Red heat warmed her face. She jogged forward as Michael remained in the center field with his sword drawn. His blade glinted from the spotlights above the artificial turf.
 

She told herself not to follow his sword. She needed to remember her tactics. They would save her life. Do not stare into his eyes, she told herself, ignore his hands. Take in his entire body. Even consider his feet weapons. Even his hands could kill.

Joan picked up her speed. Michael held his position. He stood still like a Greek statue. His face serene and his blade held down at his side as she neared him. She cleared the forty-yard line, forty-five, and forty-seven.
 

She aimed her blade at his ripped golden abs, and wondered if his true abs matched the armor. He slipped to his left. Her blade sliced into air.

Joan spun to her right as Michael danced away from her. She moved in close. He kept a five-foot distance before he lunged forward. He lifted his blade above his head to deliver a downward stroke.

She raised her gladius, countered the blow. He feinted left and jammed his blade towards her ribs. She parried the attack. Metal struck metal to create a high musical note she enjoyed. She escaped his lunge towards her throat and tapped his sword away with her blade.

Joan pursed her lips, amazed at how her body moved light like a feather. She stopped and twirled her blade as Michael zipped forward. She slipped his blow, the bright steel passed inches from her face, so close the wave like ripples within its folded metal danced before her brown eyes.
 

Michael held the blade to her neck. “You lose, Joan.”

Joan smiled as the archangel allowed his blade to touch the delicate skin just a hair beneath her jugular vein. “Below, Michael.”

The archangel glanced down. Her sword tip sat against his inner thigh. “But that is not a killing blow. Losing your head is.”

Joan grunted as he lowered his sword, and she removed hers.
 

The archangel nodded. “Good, but now you understand the concept of how we fight?”

Joan lifted her eyebrows. “Yea, don’t loose your head.”

“And to answer your question, yes they are.”

Joan blinked, paused at the archangel’s statement before her face flushed with heat. He smiled at her.
 

Michael sheathed his weapon and placed a strong hand on her shoulder. He leaned his head forward until his helmet touched hers. “Don’t lose your head.” He clapped her shoulder as his wings spread large and wide upon his back.
 

Michael stepped away from her and his face became stern. He closed his eyes and inhaled deep, his chest heaved, and a frown crossed his beautiful face. “Their stench is so close.” After those words, he gave his wings a powerful flap. The first push sent him headed for the Georgia Dome’s roof, and the second sent him through the steel and concrete.

Joan turned from the fifty-yard line and jumped into the air. Her wings unfolded and each powerful stroke sent her higher and higher. The artificial turf fell away until she went through the dome and into the rain beaten air.
 

The dome became an egg below her. Soon the city turned into a maze. With a thought, she changed into her regular clothes. She preferred a more relaxed dress and decided to reserve her armor for battle. Her thoughts trailed to California, to her oath, and those who depended on her.