Wickerman Cove

Part 30: Angelology

Sometimes, the difference between being a Marine and just being someone who knew how to fight was subtle. Sometimes, so subtle that nobody who wasn't in the military would care. It wasn't just about learning to fight: it was about knowing how and when; about how to work as a team, and the fact that you never got into anything unless you had a way to stack the odds. Even if you were taking a small team into an enemy camp, you didn't do it as an underdog. You did it because that gave you the best odds.

A huge part of that was discipline. For Steph, that was why, despite the fact that every nerve in her body was screaming, she didn't raise the bullpup and empty her entire magazine into the Guide.

He stood, his dead eyes locked on hers, surrounded by stunned, panicked members of the church who'd just seen their friend drop dead.

He curled his lips into a mocking, sardonic smile. She could almost hear the cracking sound as the dry flesh broke and the skin flaked away.

It didn't matter. There was no way she was going to empty an automatic weapon into a crowd. She yelled for them to stand away, but it was just wasted air. They were stunned, stupefied by the insanity of what was going on around them. The dead man didn't even feature.

Above them, the 'Angel' hovered, screaming. An alpha-wolf sound, screaming out its rage and pain. It was a superheated mass of white-hot brass and cooking flesh that made the rain around it turn to steam. The heat it projected wasn't summer heat. It was merciless, vengeful. The fire that destroyed enemies of God.

This time, Steph knew she was seeing something unreal – not the Angel, or the Guide; everyone was looking at them.

Glassy tendrils extended out of David Gabriel. They joined at his temples and wrists, snaking under his shirt. There was even a sheen over his skin – glossy, with a faint orange glow. They attenuated impossibly –some training into the dark of the night, others rising high into the air and joining with the Angel.

Golden light travelled through the transparent fibres, coming up in pulses from the darkness. Gabriel's smile flickered as they reached him, completing their journey by travelling into the thousand-eyed thing.

"So, David," Mansfield said, not moving towards the young woman. "What will it be?"

Steph saw Gabriel's response before he could voice it – a flash of blue-white, sharp, like lightning, that travelled from his throat to the Angel.

She dropped the bullpup and let it hang from its sling, making a dive for Mansfield.

All one thousand of the Angel's eyes seemed to fix on her. A thousand points of rage. With its anger came the heat – it tore down from the sky. If this thing was an angel, maybe something like this was what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. To Lot's wife, reduced to a pillar of ash. The ghostly white of the neon cross was overpowered by a ragged, forceful beam of blazing incandescence. There was nothing gentle about this thing the beam the police cruiser and tore it to pieces. The tank went up almost before the ray hit, scattering shards of steel through the crowd.

Steph was about to reach Mansfield, ready to tackle like a linebacker. It was meaningless. They were both right next to the cruiser. No amount of training or preparation could outrun an explosion. At best, she'd use her body to protect Mansfield's. It wouldn't save her. Maybe she'd get second more to live, just so that the Angel could look a quarter of an inch to the right and burn her to ashes.

The Guide stepped out of nothing. Steph felt reality twist as he just seemed to... open. Every dark spot and shadow on his body became a hole into another place. He burst into a vaguely humanoid patch of darkness and rushed forward to envelop her.