The War in Heaven (26 page)

T
he group of angels and humans emerged from the misty portal into a war zone at the east gate of the City of Zion. The skies above the city were literally ablaze with angelic and demonic weapons, and the air rumbled with their report. Before them, a flood of people were streaming away from the city gate, vanishing into starry mists.

“Refugees fleeing a battle in Heaven,” noted Johann, shaking his head sadly. “The last time I saw such a thing was four centuries ago, Protestants fleeing from the Catholic persecution in northern Europe. Never had I thought to see the likes of that here.”

“Our forces are being routed,” noted one of the angels.

“They were caught by surprise,” replied Gabriel. “The fault was ours. We had no contingency plan. Never in our wildest imaginings had we envisioned such a thing as this.”

“We thank you for your assistance,” said Michael, turning to Johann and Nikola, “but we must take our leave.”

“And do what?” replied Johann. “Your forces are in disarray. You must fall back and regroup.”

“But we must make contact with our angels if we are to bring order out of chaos,” said Michael. “They must know where we are to regroup. The word must be spread to our forces. If the twelve of us must do it one angelic warrior at a time, so be it.”

It took a few minutes for the angelic leaders to develop a contingency plan. They would meet near the edge of the forest, 20 miles to the south,
at a rocky hill called Ceranda. They would have to spread the word to their forces.

Moriah turned to his human friends. “We must part company now. I have concerns for your safety. Right now, the safest place for you might be at your home in the forest.”

“We appreciate your concern,” said Johann, “but we have pressing business here in Zion.”

Moriah nodded. “Take care, dear friends.”

“And our prayers are with you as well,” said Nikola, “all of you.”

They took to the air in groups of two, into the fray overhead. Johann and Nikola watched them vanish into the pure chaos.

“We need to find David,” said Johann. “If Satan’s minions realize what he knows, what he has done, they might decide to detain him.”

“But how will we locate him?” asked Nikola. “It is, after all, a big city.”

“We shall go to his home,” replied Johann. “If he is not there, then I can only assume he has gone to the Holy Place, or perhaps is trying to make his way back to our lab.”

“It will be indeed difficult to navigate the city streets moving against the flow of so many people,” said Nikola.

“We have little choice in the matter,” said Johann. “He is my student, my friend. I can’t abandon him.”

“Of course,” replied Nikola. “We might be able to make our way in by squeezing our way along the walls, out of the main flow of the refugees. Still…it may take many hours.”

“All the more reason to get started now,” said Johann heading toward the gate.

Getting through the huge arching gate and into the walled city was the toughest task. What under normal conditions might have taken ten seconds now required several minutes moving against the surging crowd. At last
they moved into the wide golden streets. The going got easier as the crowds thinned out. A mile into the city the streets were practically deserted. Yet, here they faced a different peril. This was a war zone. Before them, an errant fireball discharged from a demonic sword struck the side of a street side shop. Bits of shrapnel flew in all directions causing the two to seek cover. Up ahead there was a battle in the street as fierce fighting between angels and demons raged. Their weapon blasts had reduced the buildings on either side of the street to rubble.

“We might want to consider going up that narrow side street,” suggested Nikola, pointing to a street half the width of this main avenue. “It shouldn’t take much longer.”

The two men moved cautiously across the street and into the alley. They had traveled only 100 feet when a loud explosion overhead drew their attention. Scarcely 50 feet ahead of them an angel with one wing ripped to shreds collided with the wall of a building on their left and fell to the street. A bat-winged demon dressed wholly in black alighted on the street before him.

“Get up, minion of Michael,” he snarled, his dark sword in hand. “Fight me.”

The angel tried to rise but collapsed. His white robes were soaked in blood. Never had Johann or Nikola seen an angel in such a condition.

“So all of the fight is gone from you, is it?” said the demon in a taunting tone. “Then it’s time to slice your wings from you. Then you’ll look more like the humans you protect. But more importantly, it will make you lighter, easier to transport.”

The demon tossed two pairs of shackles before the angel. The angel looked up with dazed eyes at his attacker but did not speak.

“And once I remove those wings, I’ll shackle you up good and tight and leave you here to be picked up later like the garbage you are. You’ll spend the rest of this war in our prison, formerly known as the Hall of Angels, to await Satan’s pleasure. But first things first, let’s get rid of those wings.”

The demon approached the helpless angel, swinging his sword menacingly.

“That will be far enough!” warned Johann, his weapon raised.

The demon turned to see the two humans, their weapons raised. “I advise you not to interfere,” he snarled. “This is none of your concern. The master has ordered me to leave your kind in peace, so long as you take no hand in this fight.”

Again the demon took a step toward the angel. He stopped when he heard the hum of the particle beam’s charging capacitor.

“If you want no trouble from us, then you had best walk away,” warned Nikola. “That angel is our friend. If you have an argument with him … you have one with us too.”

There was a moment of hesitation. The demon stared intensely at the two humans challenging him. Demons had never feared humans. What could a human do to oppose them? The demon turned to strike his angelic opponent but he never got the chance. The brilliant trail of two particle beams homed in on him, hitting their mark. A loud explosion scattered boiling demon blood and pulverized flesh and bone across the width of the alley. When the flash subsided, the remains gave not so much as a clue as to what sort of creature had stood here just seconds before.

“What a mess,” said Nikola, looking about at the carnage in amazement. Yes, he had designed this weapon, but he had never fired it at a living target. “That was far more effective than I had dared to hope. I’d like to see that demon try to reconstitute itself.”

“I don’t think it will,” replied Johann. “That was incredible.”

The angel looked up in dazed confusion and noticed the two humans approaching. “What happened? Where is that demon?”

“He has returned to the dust from which he came,” said Johann.

“We need to get him out of the open,” said Nikola, pointing toward a small shop just ahead.

They slung their rifles and assisted the injured angel into the shelter of the small shop. The angel looked around to see what little was left of his demonic opponent—it was a frightening revelation. The shop provided special musical instruments to the musically inclined people of Zion, a place where artisans made instruments through the power of thought. Already the angel’s wounds were healing, yet it was a slow process.

The angel looked toward his two human benefactors. “You have my thanks. I dread to think of what might have occurred had you not happened by.”

“We are all in this together,” said Johann. “I can assure you, Heaven’s human inhabitants will not abandon our angelic brothers. Your fight is our fight.”

“You destroyed that demon,” deduced the angel. “You destroyed him with that weapon.”

“That is correct,” said Nikola. “Angels have swords and we humans have, well, this. Perhaps we can turn the tide of the war with this weapon. As the artisans of this shop make instruments that create beautiful music, I make instruments that disrupt the bonds between atoms, weapons that destroy rather than create.”

“There is a time to create and a time to destroy,” noted the angel. “Perhaps, now is the time for the latter. How many of those weapons do you have?”

“Nineteen, including these two,” said Nikola. “I didn’t see any need for more.”

“How many can you make in a day?” asked the angel. “I’m not sure,” replied Nikola, “maybe five or six.” “Are there others that can do it?”

“Yes,” replied Nikola. “Niels has made a couple, so has David. David could probably build eight or ten a day, maybe more.”

“I cannot say that this weapon, despite its power, will be of much help if they are so few in number,” noted the angel. “If Satan has launched an all-out assault upon Heaven, the number of his forces will surely be over a hundred million. He caught us completely by surprise. I was preparing for a journey to Earth when his minions began streaming out of our gate. There were so many … and they just kept coming. I cannot say how many angels are still in the hall being tormented and imprisoned by his legions. They ripped the wings from so many of my brethren. They are doing horrible things to those they capture. They rolled over us like a plague of locusts. They give us not a moment to rest, to regroup.”

“Blitzkrieg,” noted Nikola, “the lightning war. It was a tactic employed by Hitler in his war in Europe.”

“We need to be moving on,” said Johann. “We have to reach David. My friend, you should be safe here. We will try to come back for you, if we can.”

“No need,” assured the angel. “When I am fully restored, I shall fly from this place on my own.”

A moment was taken to inform the angel of the regrouping place selected by his commander, the place from which they might mount an organized defense. Then Johann and Nikola headed out into the street. The way Johann had it figured, they were about 12 blocks from David’s house. He prayed that fortune might favor them.

The route they followed was indirect and torturous, avoiding raging battles and streets full of rubble. It was over an hour before Johann and Nikola reached David’s house. Many of the houses here had been heavily damaged, although David’s house seemed to have weathered the storm well.

“Please be here,” whispered Johann, knocking on the door.

Nearly a minute went by before they heard footsteps beyond the door. The door opened just a crack, then wide.

“Johann, Nikola, welcome,” said June, hurrying her son’s two best friends into the house.

Just inside, they found David who was smiling broadly, a particle rifle in hand. Johann knew only too well how fortunate they had been.

“I’d wanted to go on to the Holy Place,” said June, “but David insisted that we stay here. Somehow he knew that you were coming.”

“I wasn’t sure,” admitted David, “but I had faith that you would come for me.”

“Now we can all go to the Holy Place,” said June. “We’ll be safe there.”

“We’ll see that you get there, Mom … but I’ve got to go with Johann and Nikola; we have work to do.”

“But those are demons out there,” objected June. “What can you do?”

Nikola couldn’t help but laugh, just a bit. He told June and David of their demonic encounter. “I cannot say that the demon was utterly destroyed, some fading spiritual remnant might still exist, but his physical form is not likely to rise again.”

“We need to make more of those rifles,” said David. “I made this one about an hour ago.”

“I didn’t realize that you had a copy of the blueprints here,” said Nikola.

“I didn’t,” said David.

Nikola looked at David incredulously, “You made that without any blueprints, no schematics?”

David smiled his oh so characteristic devious smile. “Sure, I’d made several of them before. I helped you work on the design. I did this one from memory. I’ve checked it out; the capacitor charges fine. I haven’t tried to fire it yet, but I’m confident that it will work.”

“I never watched my son create something with his mind,” noted June, placing her arm around David. “I’m so proud of him.”

“We might want to consider getting the group together and creating these rifles as an assembly-line program,” suggested David. “If each of us only had to focus on creating one part, we might be able to create a hundred a day, maybe even more.”

“We’ll have to get them all together,” said Johann. “Given our current situation, that might be difficult.”

“We could form a militia,” announced David, “Kepler’s irregulars, we could call them.”

Johann smiled slightly. “I question if Michael’s forces will be able to hold out long enough for us to get organized. They took a beating today, to be sure. Anyway, we’ve got to get your mom to the Holy Place and safety. Then we can concentrate on this problem.”

“I’m going with you,” announced June. “Maybe I can help.”

“Mom,” objected David, “this is too dangerous. This is a war.”

“I sat it out the last time you got involved in something like this—rescuing Serena—but not this time. I’m not going to let you have all of the fun. Wonder woman is coming along.”

June’s comments elicited a round of laughter from the group. David walked back into the kitchen and returned with a second particle rifle.