part0013

It felt like forever, but it was probably only ten or fifteen minutes when she felt the four teams on the life-web surround what they were assuming was the enemy’s stronghold and headquarters in the city.

She gasped, and felt faint, as a large aura blast was released from that location. Not one of any of the four half-human races, not even a warlock’s, but an angelic aura. She didn’t feel it on the life-web, no angel fallen or otherwise would show up on the life-web, they were a different form of life altogether, just like demons. No, the bastard’s aura was just that strong.

She felt a sense of some relief, as she realized almost immediately it wasn’t quite her worst nightmare, Samael was still locked and barred in the pit. But, not much relief, because it was obvious to her one of the powerful fallen had been summoned into this world. So, definitely a warlock involved in all of this, but he or she wasn’t the one holding the enemy together, she had no doubt it was the fallen angel who was responsible for it.

Probably a lieutenant of Samael, which also explained why they would seek to destroy the secret, because that angel’s mission had to be the destruction of humanity. The angel was clever enough to realize the humans would do half the job on their own, if he could incite panic and fear. Fallen angels, demons, beings that powerful weren’t easy for a warlock to summon into the world. The more powerful they were, the more sacrifices required.

Of course, all of that was speculation, but she knew if she was wrong about any of it, it would be in the small details.

Worse, she doubted any of their hunters would be the equal of a demon that powerful, she doubted even she could face one and survive. The only way to stop it, would be to kill the warlock that summoned and bound it to this plane, if the warlock died the fallen angel would be banished back to hell. It was extremely powerful, not on the level of an arch-angel, but certainly the second or third in power based on the huge aura she felt, perhaps a principality, ruler, or authority. He or she must have been hiding his aura earlier or she’d have felt the fallen when they landed.

“We’ve got bigger trouble than we’d thought.”

She winced, and felt pain in her chest, as several members of the teams died, their glowing bright green life-web strands dimmed and disappeared. The fight wasn’t one sided however, she also felt four of the witches die, along with the three rogue male shifters. The fallen, seven witches, and two soul eaters were left. She also assumed the warlock was alive, and she had no idea how many other demons were in the mix either.

“Our people are dying. There’s a fallen present, a powerful one, no doubt summoned by a warlock. I’m guessing the fallen is who is running things, probably took over as soon as the warlock summoned him.”

Jacob cursed, “We can’t leave, not without starting an incident.”

She felt three more of theirs die, along with two more witches and one of the soul eaters. It must’ve been a hell of a battle going on. Shit, for all she knew though, the warlock wasn’t even there. It was possible the fallen had him or her stashed somewhere else. It was debatable though, there were obvious pluses and drawbacks to both situations. The warlock would be insulated from battle, but if found the fallen wouldn’t be there to protect his or her life.

Still, angels and demons of that level could teleport, he could have the warlock stashed safely in Europe somewhere.

She winced, as the rest of a whole team was massacred, but the last soul eater and three more witches died. That left just two rogue enemy witches, and the angel that she could track in one way or another.

Her speculation was answered a few moments later, as the ground shook, and the loud boom of an explosion reached her ears. A moment later, all the threads in the area faded, within a square block radius out in a circle around the fallen angel’s location as best she could judge it. As far as she could tell, the fallen had just killed his last two witches, as well as the rest of the shifter teams. Not only that, but several hundred humans that were in range of that hellfire explosion were snuffed out as well.

She was positive that meant the warlock wasn’t present at the location, or the angel would have been banished when he killed him too. Unless… the fallen could have shielded another being from the explosion she supposed. It would be sloppy to assume.

She felt dizzy, with fear and grief.

Her voice was odd, scratchy and hollow, to her own ears.

“They’re all dead. The fallen angel killed them all at the last, both sides.”

Daniel growled, “How the fuck could you know that?”

She winced, and she could feel his anger and pain at the thought of his team dying.

“I’m sorry. The fallen is powerful. He, or she, killed hundreds of humans as well. I imagine our interview is going to be much tenser than we’d hoped.”

Jacob asked, “How do we kill it?”

She frowned, “I’m not sure it can be killed. It’s immortal, a dark angel, and while not a god it might as well be compared to us. We have to find the warlock that summoned it, and then kill him or her. That will banish the angel back to hell, just like any other demon would be.”

Meri asked, “What about human weapons, not guns, but the heavy stuff?”

She shook her head, “I don’t know, I imagine the fallen can shield itself against harmful energies, including kinetic. They have flesh bodies, but its more organized energy. They’re fast, fast enough to dodge just about anything, and can cross over half the world in a blink of an eye.”

Carl asked, “Won’t the angels come? They did for Samael.”

She tilted her head, then frowned, “I doubt it.”

Meri asked, “Why?”

She took a deep breath, “Samael was here under his own power, and it was only his will. Samael… interfered with free will in his quest to destroy humanity, but he was chased down and bound in hell for interfering with free will. This is different, a warlock summoned him, a half-human with free will to determine their own path. Humans have the right to self-determination, and if they want to summon fallen angels to destroy the world they’re allowed to.”

Jace said, “That’s stupid.”

She shrugged, “I didn’t make the rules, but free will is kind of important. We have to accept the good and bad it can bring. Otherwise we’re just slaves and god’s puppets, and what fun is that?”

Jacob asked, “How sure are you about that?”

She said, “Pretty damned sure. Remember, Uriel didn’t show up until…” she trailed off, not wanting the humans listening to learn that part of things.

She suspected Uriel was only sent when Samael suborned her will, while she was happily ignorant and having Samael’s babies, he hadn’t actually broken any rules yet. Being naïve, stupidly in love with an evil lie, wasn’t taking away her free will. It was why he was called the father of lies, and had a serpent’s tongue, because he wasn’t supposed to directly interfere.

Jacob asked, “Ideas?”

She said, “There are still forty-seven evil soul eaters in the city, as well as that rogue shifter couple. We capture a few and question them, get the warlock’s location, and hope we can find him and take him down before the fallen shows up and kills us with a wave of its hand.”

Jacob nodded, “Sounds familiar. We’ll get on that, or at least pass it along, depending on what happens here.”

That made sense, if things went really badly they’d be on the run, which would make it rather difficult to chase down warlocks. Given the huge explosion and a whole lot of dead citizens, that seemed far more likely now. They’d been protecting humanity since the start of time, it was what they did, but she knew from a human perspective they could claim they were vigilantes. It was even true in a way, but not really, they didn’t take human law and order into their hands, they obeyed and followed their calling to stop sadistically evil supernatural predators.

She could feel all the bad humans out there too, the vibes and intentions on the life-web was full of them, but that was outside her calling and what she did. They let the humans take care of the human threats. But… the FBI might not see it that way. To be fair, there wasn’t usually collateral damage to that magnitude, and small damage was always covered up.

Meri asked, “What now?”

“The aura, he or she must be hiding it again, the fallen angel disappeared off my radar. Well, hiding it or he left the city.”

She felt sick inside, at the thought of the four teams dying. She’d seen it all before of course, back when larger battles were far more common. She never gotten used it though, and she’d always hate it. The senseless human deaths got to her too, but she’d seen civilizations fall in the past. This was a new kind of threat, one not seen by the shifter community in centuries. It was horrible of course, but if just a few hundred humans died in this battle with a fallen angel who wanted to end the world, she’d call it a major win. Unfortunately, she wasn’t nearly so optimistic about it. They’d have to be very careful, and avoid the angel while they hunted the warlock, which was much easier said than done.

Daniel still looked angry, unsure, and she could read the false hope in his emotions. She hated that too.

The door was thrown open, and two very livid FBI agents walked in and stood at the end of the table with dark scowls on their faces. One was male, in his early forties, and looked to be in great for his age. He had dark brown hair, gray eyes, and radiated authority. The woman next to him had short strawberry blonde hair, intelligent green eyes, and a lissome body. She was five foot nine or so, and in her mid-thirties.

Being an empath, she knew their emotions were honest, the shit had just hit the fan in a big way in the nation’s capital. She imagined it was bad enough that the president and all the other politicians were most likely scurrying into dark holes and screaming for answers.

She also recognized psychological manipulation, they obviously hadn’t sat in an effort to gain the upper hand and authority in their conversation, but she doubted anyone at the table was impressed. She knew she wasn’t. They also hadn’t spoken yet, an obvious gambit to make them feel uncomfortable, so they’ll explain themselves in burst of verbal diarrhea.

She took a sip of water. She was upset in the moment, and off balance, but not by these two humans. That was all about facing an angel. Sure, it could have been worse, but in reality, even the ruler of hell wasn’t much worse than what she’d felt.

Point being, she’d used and seen this same interrogation tactic a hundred thousand years ago, she was over it.

Meri said, “I tried to order pizza earlier, but my phone doesn’t work in here.”

She almost choked on her water, but she managed to hold it down and bite her lip to prevent a laugh.

The male agent scowled deeper, and said in a deadly voice, “Do you think that’s funny? Hundreds of people were just slaughtered with some kind of bomb, the president and members of congress are ringing off the phones, demanding answers from us and the secret service.”

He leaned forward and put his fingertips on the desk in an intimidating way, “You people are going to give me those answers, or I’m going to throw you in a hole so dark they’ll have to bring in sunlight by pack train.”

Meri nodded, “I understand, but we didn’t do it, so lose that misdirected anger. We lost thirty people too. It would’ve been thirty-eight, if we weren’t in here cooling our heels.”

The male agent asked coldly, “Who is we, and what do you know of the ones responsible? While you’re at it, explain what the hell happened in San Antonio.”

Meri opened her mouth, but then shut it and gave Jacob a sheepish look when he cleared his throat.

“I’m Jacob, this is Lily, Jace, Cinna, Carl, Allison, Meri, and Daniel. You are?”

The second agent answered coldly without missing a beat, “Asking the questions.”

Jacob smirked, “Fine,” then turned to Allison, “Who are they?”

Allison replied in a matter of fact voice, “Special Agent Grant Gibson, head of the supernatural task force that’s been put together, and Agent Jessica Ransom. Most of the agents on the task force don’t believe at all, but Agent Gibson here has seen weird things before, and he’s working closely with Jessica because she’s both smarter than he is and the only other one who believes in the supernatural.”

They both looked a shocked by Allison’s knowledge of them, but they didn’t ask about that at all. Maybe they were afraid too, she wasn’t sure.

Jacob nodded at the empty seats, “This isn’t going to be quick. The bomb wasn’t a bomb, it was magic, the magic of a fallen angel summoned from hell. I also imagine he isn’t happy, because we’re screwing up his plans by telling you this. I don’t know all his plans, but the end will be the destruction of civilization, followed by extinction. You have to understand this, an angel is a weapon of mass destruction, and most likely immune to all of your weapons. A nuke might work, but I wouldn’t count on it, plus a mushroom cloud over Washington DC is a crappy plan. The only way to end the threat is to find the warlock that summoned him to this world, kill the warlock, banish the fallen angel back to hell.”

Jessica shook her head, “We heard all that earlier, who are you, what are you.”

Jacob nodded, and then explained about the four races. That two were demonic in origin, the witches based in this dimension and the power of life, touched by both the demonic and angelic, and the shifter race which was born from the angelic. He also managed to explain the existence of rogues, both the bad shifter rogues, and the good soul eater rogues who refused to prey on humanity. He went over how witches were mostly neutral, but some few fought on both sides. He also explained the warlocks, and what happened in San Antonio was similar but not nearly as bad as the current situation without a powerful fallen angel in the mix.

He avoided talking about their origins, specific powers, anything to do with blood sharing, and their longer lifespans.

He finished with, “As you can see, we’re half human, and humans are messy. There are no easy answers, we fight and kill the bad ones to protect humanity, it’s our calling, but we support or leave the rest alone. The future will be interesting, if humanity doesn’t overreact, and supports us or at least stays out of the way in our fight to protect you from evil.”

Jessica said, “That’s a little off topic, but interesting how?”

He shrugged, “In the past, before we had to hide from you because of a church gone mad, witch hunts, and the inquisition, we helped in small ways. Witches that were neutral and not in the fight on either side, generally made a living improving crops, healing disease, being midwives, and things like that. Some of that isn’t relevant in a modern world, but some of it is. There are other things, for obvious reasons we haven’t touched human law enforcement, we are not vigilantes. Still, if you could convince a witch to join law enforcement, or even a soul eater, you’d have a huge advantage against the criminals.”

Grant asked skeptically, “It’s a calling, to save humanity from evil and protect them from extinction?”

Jacob nodded, “It’s in the angel part of us I think, Uriel’s influence. It affects all of us, shifter rogues that go evil are far rarer than soul eaters that follow their human heart and join the other side or go neutral. Although we might be able to credit some of them feeling that way as half humans, obviously not all humans are inspired so.”

Jessica nodded, “But some are.”

Jacob said, “Obviously, like you two for instance, or the witch and soul eater on my team. They don’t have an angelic half, but they feel the calling to protect too. But work out the numbers, the number of humans that feel the need to join law enforcement, in comparison to the entire population. For us, with angelic blood, it’s close to one hundred percent.”

She could feel Grant’s doubt, but he also obviously wanted to believe. He also had no idea what to do with them. He couldn’t exactly give his blessing to go out and make war in America’s capital city. Not without approval from above, and even then they’d want to stick their noses in it all. She wasn’t sure where that kind of thing would begin and end, but she had a feeling they’d seen the end of their red-tape free existence.

Jessica must’ve sensed as well, because she turned to Grant and said, “Perhaps we should kick this up the line. I believe them. We can’t find this warlock without their help,” she turned back to them, “What can take him down, I’m assuming arresting him isn’t an option.”

Jacob shook his head, “It’s not, they can wield hellfire, which can turn the hardest substance in the world to ash in seconds. If it helps your conscience, they are all corrupted by hell, and mass murderers. So are the soul eaters. You probably have a building somewhere in the city with a hundred or so dead sacrifices right now, that’s the kind of thing it would take to summon a dark angel of the power this one holds. Killing one isn’t hard, most of them go down with a single bullet, some of them learn how to shield using hellfire, like Jenna. As you saw on the videos, it took a lot of firepower, including throwing bars of tungsten and C-4 to break through it. Once that happened, the hail of bullets took her down fast.”

Jessica frowned, “Most won’t like that, no trial, you just kill them all?”

Jacob shrugged, “Soul eaters hunt humans, consume their life force, all while torturing them with emotional manipulation. There’s no doubt about which ones are guilty. The law and courts of humans are necessary, because humans make mistakes and assumptions, guilt must be proven. However, shifters can smell the corruption on them, witches can read the truth of their guilt from their own minds, and soul eaters can feel the truth of someone’s soul with their empathy. It’s very obvious to us, whether a soul eater is a sadistic predator and murderer, or if they live by human laws and refuse to hunt humans.

“As for warlocks, any warlock that uses magic is corrupted by hell itself, their goal is genocide, always, and as I said if they use their powers and summon demons, they are guilty of murder. They can’t have demon minions, without sacrificing humans. Rogue witches are a bit stickier, since they can shield their minds and emotions, but even they stink of evil to our noses, and we usually catch them in the act and kill in defense of human victims.”

Grant looked a bit lost, but she felt his determination grow, “You’re right Jess, let’s go and kick this up the line, though I bet they’ve all been listening anyway.”

Jessica said, “Please wait here. I imagine it will take time to figure out where this will go, but we also need to figure out an emergency measure fast, if there’s a fallen angel running around the city.”

Both agents left the room then, and they closed the door behind them.

Meri said, “That went better than I expected.”

Daniel snorted, “Because they’re agents, they’re like us, only concerned with protecting this city and country. The politicians haven’t gotten involved yet.”

Oh, right. So much for feeling optimistic, she hoped their sense of self-preservation moved them to do the right thing, but that was even assuming they’d believe the briefing Jacob gave them, far from a sure thing. She was also sure they all wouldn’t be in agreement, many would say all supernatural beings were a threat, and some idiots would say the opposite. The people would have an opinion as well, and some politicians would waffle with the public’s perception of things.