Halo of Brimstone, page 18
part #3 of Kingdom Wars Series
Crossing the open area between the fourth and third wings would be the biggest challenge. You could bet SWAT would be in position to target the door of the occupied classroom which meant they would almost assuredly see us. I looked out the window. It was clear. Then, I saw Rogan sprinting toward the third wing.
“You! Stop!”
Rogan disappeared through the wall of the classroom.
I lowered my head and ran as fast as I could.
“There’s another one!”
The sound was coming from above. I glanced behind me to see a SWAT team on the roof of the fourth wing. I fully expected to be shot in the back. However, no shot came as I penetrated the wall.
I could only imagine the response of their superiors when the SWAT team reported seeing two men with backpacks running through walls.
I stood in the empty classroom staring at the final wall, a whiteboard with a list of spelling words: brook, drink, phone, ache, wealthy, bottle, lunch. Anger welled inside of me. This was what should be today’s challenge for the children in the next room, not death and vengeful demons. Add to that, their survival depended on a writer who had the misfortune of being born Nephilim. Abdiel should be here protecting them, and Michael.
Memories flashed of the Spectacle at 4th and Broadway, downtown San Diego, as four faithful angels watched stoically as a mother and child were targeted for death, forbidden to interfere by the rules of engagement of an eternal heavenly war. How do you explain their lack of intervention to the families of the children in the next room?
My pulse quickened. What lay beyond that wall? A bloodbath?
Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself for the worst possible scenario and breached the wall.
The first thing I saw were two adults lying dead in their own blood. From their clothing it appeared to be the janitor and the mother. The classroom desks had been jammed into the far corner. The children were hunched under them, frightened and shivering. Two more adults—a young female teacher and the missing security guard—were crouched near the door. The boyfriend, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, stood over them, his back to me. He held a gun.
I looked for flickering faces, hoping that the urgency of the moment would somehow kick into gear the skill that eluded me. No such luck.
A slight blonde girl dressed in pink jeans and a princess pullover was the first to notice me. She was closest to me under the desks. My sudden appearance startled her. I pressed a finger to my lips, signaling her to keep quiet.
Crawling out from under the desk, she ran toward me and I feared she’d wrap her arms around me, restricting my movement. She pulled up short, just out of arm’s reach.
“Look what we have here, Ashmedai,” she said with a voice too mature for her age.
The boyfriend turned around. “The Nephilim,” he said with a wicked grin. “What a fortunate turn of events. We were coming for you after we dispatched the troublesome Capt. Dorn. Our prince will be pleased. He is eager to add you to his cadre of demons.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, unable to come up with a witty comeback. “Well, I have just one thing to say to your prince.” Time for the code phrase. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I let you harm these children.”
Nothing happened. No Rogan.
I balled my sweaty hands into fists.
“A cold, cold day in hell,” I said louder. “So very, very cold.”
Ashmedai in the boyfriend’s body looked at me like I was insane.
“I can’t tell you how cold it will be.”
Rogan stormed through the wall like a raging linebacker and tackled the possessed boyfriend to the floor. The gun went flying across the room. Pinning him to the ground, Rogan took in the room.
“The security guard,” he shouted, “and the girl standing in front of you. You take the girl, I’ll get this one and the guard.”
He slammed his hand against the boyfriend’s back.
“Be still!” he shouted.
I looked at the girl in front of me. She was what? Nine? Ten years old? So innocent. The thought of reaching into her for a demon was unthinkable.
She smiled at me sweetly, took two steps and shoved me with incredible strength, sending me flying backwards. I slammed against the wall.
She came at me. I raised a hand.
“Be still!” I shouted.
She stopped.
Regaining my footing, I grabbed her arm.
“Ow!” she cried. “You’re hurting me!”
“Be still!” I shouted again.
But something was wrong. Her arm was soft and weak.
Rogan was extracting the jar from his backpack. “She’s not in the girl any longer,” he shouted.
I released the girl.
“Then where?”
Rogan didn’t reply. He had his hands full with Ashmedai.
“The Nephilim can’t see us!” Ashmedai shouted.
Great. Now everyone knew my inadequacies.
“Leave her alone!” The teacher was coming at me from across the room at the same time the security guard was going after Rogan from behind.
“Rogan! Behind you!” I cried.
Rogan looked up.
“In the woman,” he yelled, just as the security guard grabbed him and pulled him off Ashmedai, breaking Rogan’s grip on the demon.
The teacher was nearly on top of me.
“Be still!” I shouted.
“Please don’t hurt me,” the teacher said, close to tears.
“Looking for me?” the girl said with a voice not her own.
This was insufferable. How was I going to capture the demon when it kept jumping between hosts?
Rogan brought the security guard down with a leg sweep and was on his feet, positioning himself to take on two demons at once.
“Stay back!” I shouted at the teacher, hoping to isolate the demon.
As I did, the little girl leaped onto my backpack and began clawing at my face. I grabbed her arms, fully aware that the real threat was the demon inside her. I could feel it clawing through my back, trying to get inside of me.
Was it possible to perform a demon-ectomy on oneself? What choice did I have but to try?
I slapped my hand against my chest and shouted, “Be still!”
It worked! The clawing stopped. But what next? Reach into my chest and extract it?
That’s when I saw flickering. The teacher’s face! There was definite flickering! I hadn’t stilled the demon, it had fled the little girl.
The suddenness of my attack caught the demon off-guard. With the little girl still on my back, I flung the teacher against the wall, pinning her with my hand.
“Be still!”
The demon froze. Without releasing the pressure against the teacher’s chest, I lowered the little girl to the ground and told her to hide under her desk. She scampered away, joining her classmates.
I turned by attention to the demon-possessed teacher. The anger that flooded me brought clarity and strength; I felt my Nephilim blood quicken. Pressing my hand against the horrified woman’s chest, I reached inside.
“Got you!” I extracted the demon. “Lilith, I presume,” I said to the squirming hideous creature.
With my free hand I pulled the clay jar from my backpack and placed the demon in the jar, securing the lid.
Exhilaration swept through me. I’d done it.
I turned to help Rogan.
He had managed to subdue Ashmedai once again was extracting him from the boyfriend’s chest to place him in the jar as the security guard, having regained his feet, was once again grabbing him from behind.
I ran across the room and slapped my hand against the guard’s back.
“Be still!”
I reached into his back and seized the demon. But in the tussle, we knocked the clay jar out of Rogan’s hand. It crashed to the floor and shattered.
Ashmedai fled, disappearing through the ceiling.
Ornasis proved to be a slippery little devil and stronger than Lilith. I fought to control him, but he managed to elude my grasp. He too flew through the ceiling.
Exhausted, Rogan slumped atop the boyfriend who had passed out. I knew the feeling.
“We have to get out of here,” he said.
At any moment a fiber optic cable was going to protrude from the air conditioning vent.
Running to the door, I threw it open. “Kids, get out of here! Now! Run!”
A stampede ensued. And just as the fiber cable poked into the room, Rogan and I implemented our exit strategy. We stepped into the walls.
While Jana’s camera crew captured footage of the reunion of parents and children, she completed her interview with the SWAT chief and was coiling the cord of her microphone.
“I’m not telling you a story, mommy,” she heard a little girl saying. “They were angels. Angels rescued us.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” her mother said.
Jana approached them. “What makes you think they were angels?” she asked.
The mother shielded the girl. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“Please,” Jana said, “this is important. I promise I won’t use her statement on the news.”
“It was Rogan,” the girl said. “Rogan the angel.”
Jana knelt.
“Are you sure?” she said.
“That’s what the other angel called him. His name is Rogan.”
It was well past midnight before we stepped out of the elementary school wall. All was quiet. The SWAT command post was gone, so too were the news crews.
When we reached my car, I handed Rogan the jar containing Lilith. While we had saved the children, we’d failed to capture two of the three demons. It was only a matter of time before more lives would be endangered.
We rode back to his hotel in silence.
After dropping Rogan off, I returned to the laundromat to get my clothes. The lids of the two washing machines were open, the tubs were empty. While there was a lost and found bin on a back table, my clothes weren’t in it.
Considering the events of the day, the loss of my wardrobe was a small price to pay.
“I saw flickering faces,” I muttered with satisfaction. “I captured a demon.”
I drove home.
CHAPTER
29
A mild ocean breeze teased the linen curtains of Rogan’s screenless window. He was on the fifty-second push-up of his morning routine when he heard someone knocking on the door. He ignored it.
His first week in the room he answered the door whenever someone knocked, but soon grew weary of it. He had better things to do than to deal with a jealous wife looking for her husband, a jealous husband looking for his wife, a sailor who had previously hooked up with a girl in this room, or a disoriented drunk.
“Rogan? It’s me, Jana.”
He rolled over and looked at his watch. 5:30 a.m. After the previous day’s battle at the elementary school, he’d slept in and was just starting his routine.
Grabbing a towel, he opened the door.
Jana glanced at the sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his chest.
“Sorry for my appearance,” he said. “Morning calisthenics.”
He wanted to apologize for the room . . . not just the room, the whole building. Standing in a classless hallway was the classiest woman he’d ever known, stunning in a periwinkle blue ankle length dress with sleeve ties.
“I wish you’d called first,” he said. “I would have met you somewhere.”
“I know you’re an early riser. Are you going to invite me in?”
He stepped aside.
She strolled in and looked around, impressed by the bed with its taut blanket and hospital corners. At the desk she ran a fingertip across the title of his copy of the Tanakh.
“Interesting Mexican pottery collection,” she said, noticing the line of jars set against the wall. She bent over to pick one up.
“Um . . . I’d appreciate it, if you didn’t,” he said, stepping between her and the jars.
Her eyebrows raised. “Is there a story behind the pottery?”
“Is that what you’ve come for? A story?”
“Actually,” she said brightly, “I thought we could go out to breakfast. Sort of pick up where we left off at the mall. I can wait for you downstairs while you take a . . .”
Her voice trailed off when she realized there were no facilities in the room.
“A communal bathroom down the hall,” Rogan explained. “How about if I catch up with you at the restaurant?”
The thought of her waiting in the lobby of a seedy hotel was unacceptable.
“There’s quaint breakfast nook a block away,” she said. “We can meet there.”
She gave him directions.
While he showered and shaved, Rogan pondered Jana’s early morning appearance. She was up to something. An unannounced visit was obviously her attempt to put him off balance. Was this about yesterday? What did she know?
It was possible Grant had said something to Sue. If so, it wasn’t unlikely that Sue would have confided in Jana.
It was also possible that she’d seen SWAT footage of the schoolroom. Had the fiber optic camera caught a glimpse of him and Grant?
But then it might be something as simple as a further explanation as to why he’d followed her to the elementary school, or why he’d ducked out of the newsroom after viewing the airport footage.
Whatever her motives, it was a distraction. His failure to capture Ashmedai and Ornasis infuriated him. Twice he’d had Ashmedai in his grasp. Add to that he was no closer to finding their prince, Nosroch. And it was only a matter of time before the Archangel Michael discovered his location and demanded the return of Solomon’s ring. Game over. Without the ring, all of his efforts to this point were for naught.
As Rogan left the hotel for the restaurant, his military training argued that Jana was an unnecessary entanglement. He should just walk away and focus on the mission.
“You clean up nicely,” Jana said as he pulled out a chair and sat opposite her.
Rogan was wearing a shirt and pants she’d picked out for him at the mall.
He’d found her sitting at a table for two tucked away in a corner of the cozy restaurant. It wasn’t the kind of place he would have frequented on his own—with embroidered white tablecloths, watercolor paintings of country scenes on the walls, and curtains edged with lace—but it was a perfect setting for Jana, who looked positively beatific.
A matronly waitress with an ample waistline appeared and Rogan ordered coffee.
“I apologize for interrupting your workout,” Jana said. “Do you exercise every morning?”
Rogan described his routine—the calisthenics and the run by the bay.
His coffee arrived.
“I know so little about you,” Jana said after the waitress left. “What do you do after you exercise? How do you fill your days?”
“I manage to keep busy.” He picked up a menu. “Have you eaten here before? What’s good?”
When she didn’t respond to his question, he looked up. Jana was staring at him.
“Why are you still here?” she asked.
“I haven’t eaten yet.”
“Why are you still here in San Diego?” she clarified.
“Are you growing tired of me?”
“You’re not consulting with the Navy,” she said. “You don’t ask about things that interest tourists. And I’ve been around military men enough to know that a man of your rank would have certain obligations.”
“I think I’ll order the biscuits and gravy,” Rogan said, setting down the menu.
“Why were you at the elementary school?”
“I told you. I wanted to see you in action.”
“You’ve done that. That’s how we met, remember?” Jana said. “I was reporting on the SEAL training, you were watching. Would you care to amend your answer?”
The waitress came to take their order. Rogan indicated his choice. Jana said she was fine with tea. When they were alone, Jana continued staring at him as though he was a puzzle to solve.
“Does this have anything to do with Grant being Nephilim?” she said.
“Nephilim?” Rogan scoffed. “Jana, there haven’t been Nephilim since ancient times. What has Grant been telling you?”
She sat back and folded her arms, giving him a don’t-mess-with-me glare.
“The three airline flights,” she said. “You started to tell me something at the mall and we were interrupted.”
Rogan sat back and folded his arms, mirroring her posture. Things had changed since the mall. Focus on the mission.
“Yesterday,” Jana ventured. “The threat to the children simply vanished. One minute they were being held hostage in a room with dead bodies on the floor; the next, the threat was gone and they ran out of the classroom. SWAT could offer no reasonable explanation.”
“I shouldn’t have to remind you of that which you know so well,” he replied. “The military is rarely forthcoming with facts, especially with the press.”
Jana smiled, relaxed, stirred her tea, and took a sip.
“You’ll like this,” she said brightly, her demeanor changing. “One little girl I talked to who was in the room said they were rescued by angels.”
“Sounds like a little girl with a big imagination.”
“She said she even knew the angel’s name.”
Rogan grew uneasy.
“Do you know what she told me? She told me the angel’s name was Rogan.”
Checkmate.
Rogan fingered the ring. Jana had put all the pieces together. She knew about Grant, which came as no surprise. She knew that hostile demons were in the area. And she’d placed him in the schoolroom.
He hesitated, then leaned forward and removed the ring, showing her the corresponding tattoo beneath it.
“I am a member of an elite team of Sayeret Matkal, a blood descendant of Solomon,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We specialize in the supernatural. Our commander is the Archangel Michael.”
Jana unfolded her arms.
“This ring,” he held it out to show her, “was once given to Solomon by the archangel. It gave him, and now me, the power of Nephilim, power over demons.”
