The War of the Lamb

By Lonnie Smith

The long awaited final conflict foretold in Revelation is finally here pitting all the forces Yahweh can muster against the forces Satan has amassed since his exile from heaven. The tale is told from the perspective of both sides including two central protagonists, Lilith, the longed cursed first mate of Adam, and Doyle, half human and half demon with conflicted feeling about which side of the conflict he should be on. Both have parental heritage issues they must overcome if they want to forbidden relationship. Although Yahweh struggles to keep the conflict confined to Earth, it involves other gods and a trip to ancient Jerusalem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lonnie Smith
• Release date: Feb 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370099306

Lonnie Smith

Author Number 1 (Kambel Smith) Kambel is my oldest son, he and I had kind of a rough start. He was born with autism which made it difficult for us to understand each other, but we finally got it together It seemed like forever before we found his knack. Today he is the one of the authors of Flames of Avasten. Kambel is master of book series illustrations. Author Number 2 (Kantai Smith) Kantai and I always had a good relationship, I enjoyed watching him grow. I got a chance to see some of the normal things I didn’t see in Kambel. Kantai was misdiagnosed with autism, his condition was eventually described as condition unknown. All I really know is he needed an IEP throughout his education. Kantai didn’t have autism, but his condition hid his knack until his early teen years. When we finally found it there was lots of work to do, it was difficult to steer him in the right direction, but we finally got it done. Today he is one of the authors of Flames of Avasten. Kantai is master of series development and story design. His input was a crucial part of choosing our audience. Author Number 3, my name’s Lonnie that would be me. I find it hard to describe myself because the story behind the Survivor series isn’t about me. I helped my boys break the chains of their so called disabilities and that’s really all I need. The only thing I can say that would definitely describe me is my name is Lonnie I’m author number 3.

Book preview

Chapter One

Wormwood

New Year’s Day -2025

It was just one of nearly 13,000 Near Earth Asteroids whose orbits bring them in close proximity to Earth. A small rock, only 200 feet in diameter, an insignificant dust mote on the cosmic scale that would normally not have been tracked, or even cared about, but it had been spied by a budding young astronomer in Iowa using a small telescope in his back yard and assigned the name "Stephenshulz" after its discoverer. The product of an ancient collision between a comet and the moon of a small planet unimaginably far away, Stephenshulz had meandered aimlessly through the vast void of space until being captured in an orbit between the sun and Earth a little over a million years ago. Since then, this insignificant little black rock had circled harmlessly with its fellow asteroids in an orbit that posed no threat to Earth or alarmed NASA’s Sentry Automatic Near-Earth Asteroid Collision Monitoring System.

The good behavior ended drastically on a New Year’s Day afternoon, when a larger neighbor shuddered and veered sharply into Stephenshulz’s path as if shoved by an unseen hand. Like a game of pool, the collision deflected Stephenshulz into a tumbling direct path towards Earth. This new year would not be putting a good foot forward for Earth’s inhabitants. Normally, small asteroid like Stephenshulz would have incinerated harmlessly in its transit through Earth’s atmosphere, or at least most of it, leaving only small chunks of rock to hit the ground. But Stephenshulz was made of sterner stuff, its high iron content making it a particularly sturdy missile that conceded to the buffeting of Earth’s atmosphere by only breaking in half, not really a benefit from any perspective, because it turned the plunging asteroid into two death dealers instead of one. Both pieces struck with an energy of 4.29 megatons, instantly vaporizing everything for miles around their impact points. Although the Earth as a whole barely felt the strikes given its mass, the two pieces of space rock could not have picked a worse place to strike - the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a 680 miles long fault running 50 miles off the west-coast of the Pacific Northwest and home to nearly 20 major volcanoes and over 4,000 separate volcanic vents including numerous stratovolcanoes, shield volcanos, lava domes, and cinder cones, along with a few isolated examples of rarer volcanic forms such as tuyas. Worse, the Cascade Volcanic Arc is part of the larger Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped volcanic belt, 25,000 miles long hosting 452 volcanoes, many of which, were already experiencing unprecedented levels of activity. It was like lighting striking a bomb making factory. The blasts shook the already unstable tectonic plates underpinning the region causing them to collide like bumper cars, creating record level earthquakes and freeing lava, that had been trapped in pockets for thousands of years, to burst out in sympathetic volcanic eruptions all along the Ring. Mt. Ranier, Mt. Shasta, Mt. St. Helen, and Mt. Hood literally blew their tops immediately; followed by eruptions of Popocatepetl in Mexico, Pacaya and Fuego volcanos in Guatamala, and Klyuchevskaya Sopka on the Kamchatsky Peninsula which instantaneously ignited the nearby Bezymianny and Karymsky volcanoes. Mauna Loa, Kilauea and Diamond Head volcanos in Hawaii, Mt Unzen in Japan, and Batur volcano in Bali, Indonesia follow suit within hours.

Cities and farmlands were crushed under tons of fiery pyroclastic ash and white-hot lava. Uncounted millions of people were incinerated outright, and billions more doomed to slow deaths of starvation and disease with no medical care. Ash thrown into the air over each volcano would remain suspended there for months, dooming even more people to a gasping death as their lungs clogged. The ash would also prevent the warming rays of the sun from reaching the earth, dropping temperatures below freezing even in the equatorial tropics. The onset of another ice age was inevitable, spelling the end to even more of the Earth’s plant and animal life. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse, War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death had been set loose and the times of Tribulation begun.

And Satan saw that this strike had created the death and chaos he intended, and it was good. The sixth seal had just been shattered. The final curtain to the end of times prophesized in Revelation was being raised –Armageddon. Mankind was reeling and questioning their gods for allowing such a catastrophe to happen to them. The battlefield was now prepared for the next phase of his quest – a major incursion to test the will of both mankind and Heaven. If they put up little resistance, he would personally lead his forces to victory. If the resistance was strong, he would pull back and continue building his forces until he couldn’t lose. He had all the time in the world and a weapon to use if everything went bad.

He smiled. Send in the shock troops. Let them come in through the lava flows and kill until they can no longer raise a weapon. Let them rape and pillage with no mercy. Let them vent the frustrations of being consigned to Hell for millennia by an unforgiving Yahweh. We need to hit hard right now and draw Yahweh into to the open where we’ll have fortified positions on the high ground.

Chapter Two

Two Years Earlier

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Early Morning

The frantic metronomic beat of a hip-hop song extolling the virtues of glocks and smacking bitches upside the head jarred me out of an exhausted sleep I’d fallen into just a few hours earlier. I stretched quietly as I dug a particularly intrusive insect out of my right nostril before cautiously peeping over the top of the weeds I was sprawled in. I was on a ridge overlooking a valley filled with sun parched sand and rocks layered over more sand and rocks. I remembered where I was, Af..fucking…ghanistan. I’d parachuted in with a small team of Delta force hitters several miles back, and left them loitering about a half mile away while I spent the night laboriously inching my way through the hostile flora and fauna this armpit of a country had to offer just to get to this ridge at first light. I would call them in for mop up action after I took out my target, that way they wouldn’t be violently torn apart if I failed; just me. My target was that dangerous.

Even in this early morning hour, heat waves arriving with the rising sun were already shimmering off the valley floor distorting my view of the objective, a half dozen scrubby tents about a half-mile away on the valley floor - a small Taliban patrol. Intelligence had given me their approximate location based on cell phone intercepts, but single source intelligence like that was hit or miss with a wide circular error of probability. It looked like they were right this time and my adrenalin kicked up a notch in anticipation of some action.

I squinted trying to filter out some of the thermal distortion, but there wasn’t much to see other than a single wildly bearded male, wearing a quilt-work mixture of Afghani and Western clothing, rebuilding a fire that had burned out in the night. He was the hip hop fan whose music I was hearing playing from a small CD player on the ground next to him. Another song was now wailing out a litany of inner city woes and bitches (again) – Fetty Wap? I shook my head at the incongruity of what I was hearing and seeing, and quietly settled back down in the grass to fend off another creepy crawler that had managed to get all the way to my crotch and seemed intent on chewing off one of my testicles. As I crushed the little beggar with malice, I wondered for the millionth time why no one had bothered to nuke this land of crazies and death into basic elemental molecules. In fact, if it was up to me, I’d nuke the molecules again into even smaller subatomic particles just to be sure they wouldn’t reincarnate. Afghanistan. The name must have come from some ancient language meaning smells like shit and looks worse. They say you can always tell what mood God was in when he created a particular place on Earth. If that’s true, someone must have just molested his baby sister right before he created Afghanistan because it has no peers when it comes to misery and potential for a violent death. Well, let me qualify that…Yemen is also a turd country cursing this planet. Been there, and have the scars.

I contemplated the mutilated bug corpse in my hand; no, make that God created this misbegotten shithole of a country…and Yemen after his sister AND mother were molested. It wasn’t a land for the weak; in fact, it wasn’t a land for anybody or anything with a brain stem and any trace of sentience. Yet here I am…again, seriously doubting my intelligence.

My hate of Afghanistan somewhat mollified by crushing the bug, I slowly eased my head above the weeds again and studied the small encampment through my Leupold 4.5x14 Vary X sniper scope. The camp just beginning to stir in earnest, its occupants building small fires for their tooth achingly sweet chai or performing more personal necessities in small nearby wadi. I pressed my eyeball tighter into the scope trying to pick out my target with no luck. It would be just my luck he’d separated from the main group before I arrived…and was probably hunting me the same time I was trying to blow his ass back into hell. More optimistically, he could just be trying to squeeze out a few more minutes of sleep. That was the option I hoped for. Even if intelligence was wrong and he wasn’t here, I consoled myself there were plenty of targets that needed killing just as badly, and my team would have a good time doing it, several had lost comrades to small groups of Taliban terrorists such as this. Sorry…I need to be more politically correct - PC for short (I hate that term), I shouldn’t call them targets…they were human beings not fortunate enough to have the advantages of growing up in a life which forced them to make poor life choices. That said, good and gentle natured representatives of the human race they were not – they were dedicated murderous scum no matter how many coats of PC lacquer you lather on them. Their only wish? Take down as many infidels as possible on their inevitable way to martyrdom and the promise of 97 virgins waiting for them in heaven. The problem is, looking at this shithole of a country they’re forced to live in, I couldn’t really blame them for believing (hoping?) there is something more pleasant to look forward to in death, because life has totally fucked them over.

I took a deep breath to center my mind to the task at hand, but I couldn’t help wondering who was crazier – them or me? The fact I was preparing to kick over a nest of Taliban in a hostile country was hardly a ringing endorsement of my sanity. Well not the Taliban specifically unless I was left with no choice. Specifically, my target was a shaitan, an Islamic demon to be more exact. Somehow, he (it?) had been enlisted by the good citizens below to help them fight U.S. Special Forces in the area. So why did this particular task fall to me? My name is Doyle, just Doyle and it’s what I do – kill demons and I’m good at it. The Delta hitters I had on call were good also, but they would be no match for this demon, as I said earlier, he could easily kill them all….and messily if I fucked up. So, no pressure, here I was alone preparing to take on a big bad head to head.

It’s not so much a job, as a calling, because the money isn’t good enough by a long shot to justify the risk which can be deadly most of the time. Most demons have bad attitudes and are harder to kill than crazed cockroaches, so even a small slip up can cost you your life in a very horrific fashion. Even more bizarre? I am who I kill. I’m a demon myself. Well, part demon, a half breed offspring of Satan sowing his wild oats no less, so go figure. It’s something I’ve been trying to live with…and live down…as long as I can remember…probably all my life, which has been. and will continue to be, quite long because of my demon blood. Maybe that’s why I hunt my own kind, I’m trying to exorcise a part of my life I’d rather not think about. But more about that and my dear old dad later.

Kicking my self-doubts back into the closet and slamming the door shut, I blinked a couple of stinging drops of sweat out of my right eye and brought it back to the scope just in time to see the Shaitan crawl out of a ragged large white tent on the edge of the encampment. Fuck, I knew him! Dostroth the Impaler. This job just got multiples of ten harder…and more deadly. He wasn’t one you wanted to miss if you were stupid enough to shoot at him in the first place. He was also way off the reservation and certainly not a Shaitan. He was a Christian demon…well that sounded stupid. Let’s say he was part of the Christian assemblage of demons rather than Moslem. It was something to contemplate later, but I couldn’t allow the whys and wherefores to cloud my concentration on the task at hand. Christian demon or not, Dostroth was helping the Taliban, and I’d been hired to put a stop to it.

Sweating even more now that the stakes had been raised, I applied myself with renewed vigor to make my first shot a good one. There would be no second chance with Dostroth because I would be dead, my intended target, my killer. Mumbling to myself, I mentally worked through the geometry for a shooting solution – wind, elevation, range….let’s see….add the two, carry the one…. even the friggin’ heat had to be accounted for because the bullet’s path would flatten out through lesser air density. Not an easy task for a math class dropout. I promised myself if I got through this alive, I’d go back and shoot the son of a bitch who decided I didn’t need a spotter with me…a spotter who could add and subtract, and if I was lucky, multiply and divide too.

Dostroth was a big bastard, even greatly diminished by the optics of my scope. Comparing his size against the Taliban around him, my boy easily towered over seven feet tall and was 400 pounds of muscle and raptor meanness. He looked like an IMAX screen in the huge white burnoose he was wearing. No make that a suspicious IMAX screen. I could see him carefully scrutinizing the terrain around the camp, looking for any place an attack could be launched from….like the ridge I was on, which he stared at for a few suspenseful seconds before shifting his eyes elsewhere. Did he sense my presence? I’d soon know.

I took comfort in the fact I was shooting with the right instrument for the job as I worked through my ballistic equations for a final time, a Barrett M107, an accessory you can’t leave home without if you absolutely have to blow a massive hole in something, or better, obliterate a demon’s head all over the surrounding landscape. It is shock and awe in the form of a single massive .50 caliber projectile. The Barrett was originally fielded as an anti-materiel rifle and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) tool. The Special Forces deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan found other uses for it. Like all killers, they were always in the market for new tools of destruction and they found the Barrett could massively destroy targets from more than a mile away, like bolts of lightning from a pissed off god. I’m talking arms, legs, and heads flying in different directions from a torso spinning like a top and spewing blood from every possible orifice. Very disconcerting for the survivors, especially if they’re wearing some of the bits and pieces of the victim. Have an enemy hiding behind a building wall? No problem – the Barrett will blow a big hole through both. It is so devastating against a human body, a number of countries are considering banning its use. It is; however, the perfect tool for putting down unruly demons with supernatural strength like Dostroth, especially with the load I had in it today - Raufoss Mk 211 .50 caliber (12.7×99mm NATO) projectiles with armor-piercing (tungsten core), explosive, and incendiary components. Boom. Splat…one demon wondering what he was doing back in Hell.

I cautiously shifted my weight a little to accommodate another member of the Afghan bug world munching on my huevos with gusto. My movement caused a couple of weeds around me to unnaturally sway back and forth. Cursing silently, I froze in place vowing I would set my balls on fire when this was over just to give the little crotch biter a particularly painful death. That is, if I survived through the next few minutes intact myself. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted …one thousand one, one thousand two…. expecting not to make it to one thousand five before being ripped asunder.

One thousand four…one thousand five…surprised at still being alive, I opened my eyes and raised my head just high enough to scope the camp again. Dostroth was now squatting next to a small campfire in front of a neighbor’s tent and sipping chai. Thanking my good fortune, I carefully adjusted my cross hairs to an aim point about six inches above his head and exhaled to mentally close off all distractions like my balls being turned into one big insect bite. My finger slowly caressed the trigger. If I did this right, the actual shot would be an unconscious event resulting in a bullet speeding merrily on its way into Dostroth’s cranium.

So, are you going to pull the damn trigger, Lover, or wait for him to die of old age? a soft voice whispered in my ear carried on a wisp of expensive perfume - Baccarat Les Larmes Sacrees de Thebes. About $1,700 an ounce. Lilith. She could well afford even more expensive perfumes, but she loved the frankincense and myrrh in the Baccarat which she said embodied the mystery of the Middle East.

Who cares?

What I did care about, though, was what the hell she was doing dropping in on a shoot, and then kibitzing about my skills? Especially while wearing a perfume that could give away my position. It was a damn good thing we were downwind or Dostroth’s sensitive nose would zero in on us like an intercept radar to an incoming missile.

I told you not to come. I’m working. I didn’t even bother to look at her. Having a boner while trying to shoot someone is definitely not good for accuracy. It could raise your base a few unanticipated inches and throw your shot off. That’s a tripod joke if you didn’t get it. But, yeah, she was that good looking.

Shoot before WE die old age, she persisted, which was quite humorous since she’s immortal. Her breath smelled like peaches. "Boner be gone", I moaned inwardly and squirmed as I frantically tried to keep my mind on the job at hand. Not that I had a chance with her anyway since she was untouchable. I was part demon and she was, well let’s just say she has some very high connections in the other realm. I finally broke down and chanced a quick glance at her. One only had to look to realize she wasn’t a resident of this mortal plane. Her’s was an otherworldly beauty, with long black hair flowing around an exotic Asian face and a body that…well…she had a great body that definitely didn’t put one in a holy, chaste frame of mind; let’s leave it at that. And, as I said, she was immortal, maybe the original immortal.

A smile briefly crossed my face. I’d asked her once why Asian since I knew she’d lived through the ages in a variety of ethnicities and bodies, even a few times as a man, which was hard to believe as I looked at her now. She said Asian girls had nice asses and I couldn’t really disagree.

I stared at her a few seconds more then turned my mind back to the task at hand, forcing my nose to ignore the perfume still surrounding me, I want to be 100% sure of putting him down, I mumbled.

You’ll be zero percent certain of not killing him if you don’t shoot soon, she murmured contemptuously, smothering the sound in my ear. Then she turned serious. You know Dostroth. Your window of opportunity is growing smaller as we speak. He seems to have a sixth sense. He probably already feels something’s not right.

She was right. Grumbling, I closed my eyes briefly to center myself then put my right eye back on the scope to start my shooting routine by placing the crosshairs where I wanted them. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled as I caressed the trigger. I never consciously pull the trigger on any shoot, it just happens when my mind is ready for it to happen.

Dostroth suddenly lifted his head and stared directly at me with eyes like two red hot coals gleaming from deep under the hood of his burnoose…and then disappeared.…literally…before I could get my shot off. I didn’t even see him move…he was just gone.

Oh, God’s testicles! He’s gone…he vanished.

What do you mean he’s gone? Lilith cried, clearly disturbed now.

He was there and then he wasn’t…. gone! I have to admit there was a little panic in my voice. No, make that a lot of panic.

A screech of anger, that could only come from a beast born in the depth of Hell, shattered the early morning quiet.

Fuck! Lilith cursed and scrambled to her feet.

Another blood curdling scream assaulted our ears. It was closer this time…much closer.

Fuck! Lilith swore even more emphatically as she drew her katana from its scabbard and sprinted to where she anticipated Dostroth would come charging over the top of the ridge if he was indeed coming for us, which we both knew was the case. I had taken too long with the shot, and we were both about to pay the price, which knowing Dostroth would fatal, even for Lilith.

Counting to three, Lilith raised the sword high over her head in a two-hand grip. It was a fearsome weapon with a three-and-a-half-foot curved blade that gleamed fiercely in the rising sun. The Japanese samurai had used it to great effect in their heyday and Lilith was equally skilled and just as deadly in this modern age.

The good news is Lilith correctly guessed the exact spot Dostroth would top the ridge; the bad news is she didn’t anticipate him soaring high over her 4’11 frame on large leathery wings and then smoothly pivoting to attack her from behind as soon as he landed. He was no longer the human looking nightmare I’d seen through the scope having shape-shifted into a totally different league of terrible– all teeth, clawed wings… and lethal disposition…like a dragon of medieval times without us having the advantage of a St. George nearby to do the slaying honors.

Dostroth stopped in mid-charge and grinned, Hello Lilith. It’s been a long time, he rasped familiarly through a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth that were anything but friendly. He had an English accent. I’m not sure why even the most horrible of monsters always have an English accent. Not waiting for a response, Dostroth smoothly transformed back into the human form I’d seen earlier without losing any of his size and certainly not getting any handsomer. Unfortunately, he was also naked which truth be told, was indeed impressive from a certain physical aspect, putting a whole new meaning behind his Impaler name.

Hello Lover, Lilith purred with equal familiarity, it has been a long time. She looked pointedly down at his crotch, but I see some things haven’t changed.

Lilith didn’t lower her sword. And I still remember the last time I saw you….1148 to be exact and hard to forget.

Dostroth flashed a smile only a piranha would appreciate. Aw, come on Lilith, can’t you forgive and forget? It was a long time ago.

Lilith upped his piranha smile with a toothy display a shark would envy. You tried to have me burned at the stake in Toulouse for being a Cathar. I got out of there just ahead of the mob you incited. You tried to kill me then, just like you’re trying now. Not a solid foundation for a healthy relationship.

Dostroth barked a laugh and gave an it was nothing personal, just business shrug before turning to address me in Old French, the language of the Crusades where I’d first met him - 1184 not long after his run in with Lilith. Of course, we’d been on opposite sides, he with Saladin and me with Baldwin the King of Jerusalem. It’d been a long time since I’d had that ancient language thrown at me, but my brain smoothly made the leap backward in time to understand what he was saying, Hello Brother, he growled. He glanced quickly at Lilith then back at me, Working for the other side now? Your Father isn’t going to be pleased.

It was my turn to shrug. Of course, my father wouldn’t be pleased. I was my mother’s son. She’d spent a life time instilling a sense of humanity in me, and I’d spent a millennium thereafter hating him, so I couldn’t care less what he thought.

Dostroth was silent for a few seconds, So you and Lilith…?

Partners, Lilith filled in the blank more quickly than I liked.

I frowned, and Dostroth grinned seeing it, Yeah, I know how that goes. She can do that to you.

Lilith eyed Dostroth with obvious distaste, like a particularly nasty cockroach she was about to introduce to the bottom of her shoe. You can put your clothes on now, there’s nothing much I want to see, that is unless you want me to send you back to Hell with your ass showing.

Dostroth laughed, and clothes that would have been in the height of fashion for a 14th century European courtier slithered onto his body. I smirked, Apparently, you haven’t been out of Hell for a very long time.

He hasn’t, Lilith answered, I sent him back there…what year? I think 1550. That was a very good year for me. She paused, What are you doing here anyway? This is way out of your territory. We were expecting a shaitan. You’re not even a Muslim.

Assalam o alaikum wa rehmat Allah wa Barakatahu Dostroth said hopefully, bowing his head slightly.

Lilith sniffed, Since when are you the type of person to wish Allah’s mercy and blessings on someone. I’m surprised that blasphemy didn’t burn your mouth.

Come on, give me a break, Lilith. I’m on loan from the boss. It’s just a job and it’s hard to refuse the big man. He is after all Iblis, just like he’s Satan to everyone else. I think he felt he was neglecting his duties here - too much fun torturing the Catholics. Why do you think I was with Saladin when I met your boyfriend?

So here we are, Lilith said quietly.

Yeah…here we are, Dostroth agreed.

He glared at me and snarled, Are you going to let a woman do your fighting for you Brother? Come on, let’s see the demon in you. Get your sword and let’s play. Your Father may reward me for finally putting an end to his embarrassment of a son. And once I’ve finished with you, I’ll rape and kill your women here he paused and smirked, or we can both do her.

He was trying to goad me, and it was working. A feeling of pure hate was percolating deep in my core – my demon, and it wanted out. It wanted to kill….no, it lusted to kill…a desire so intense and palpable I struggled to keep it down, a battle I’d fought all my life. Good things did not happen when it got loose.

Dostroth studied my face with amusement. Burns, doesn’t it, your demon half? But you never really embraced your heritage, did you?

He chuckled and gestured at the Barrett I was cradling in my arms. And I see you still haven’t embraced the sword. You were always particularly fond of the bow, weren’t you? Kill from a distance, not having the nerve to face someone man to man with the sword. Sad.

Dostroth sighed dramatically. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to kill you. The boss is watching. He’ll be upset about losing an offspring…. for a couple of minutes or so, but he’ll get over it. He has many other bastards, and unlike you, they fully embrace who they are.

With that, he dismissed me and turned back to Lilith. Doyle is family business, but I’m really going to enjoy killing you.

Unfazed, Lilith pursed her lips and pointedly dropped her eyes to the front of the black doublet he was wearing. Yeah…well, sorry to disappoint, but we won’t be the ones dying this day. Dostroth followed her eyes. A damp spot was rapidly staining the front of his doublet. He glanced briefly at me, then with a sick resignation, ripped the doublet open to see his intestines squirming through a long slit inflicted with katana-surgical precision extending the length of his upper torso. He dropped heavily to his knees with a grunt as he cupped his hands over the wound trying unsuccessfully to keep his intestines from slithering onto the ground.

You didn’t jump high enough, Lilith said almost apologetically.

You know this isn’t the end, Dostroth grunted through the pain. I’ll be back. The barrier is dropping. I know you can feel it. Soon the mortal world will be crawling with my kind. Armageddon is coming. I’ll look you up.

Lilith walked over to him, Seems to me we’ve heard this story before. Your Master tried to rebel before and lost…or don’t you remember, Lover?

She brought her katana up to administer the final blow.

Wait! Dostroth held up his hand. This time will be different. He has a weapon now that will change everything.

Lilith lowered her sword, What weapon? And why hasn’t he used it already?

I don’t know, Dostroth admitted. I’m just a foot soldier. But the word is strong. We’re all being told he has one and there will be changes coming...no details.

It’s all bullshit, Lilith spat back. If Satan had something as powerful as that, he would have used it by now…patience was never your boss’s strongest virtue.

Dostroth turned his head to meet her eyes, It’s not bullshit…. we’re being told to get ready. On my honor.

Your honor? Lilith laughed cynically. You’re a demon, moron, lying is what you do. She paused for a second to consider what he’d said, And you’re telling me this…why?

Old time sake? Dostroth asked hopefully.

Now that IS bullshit, Lilith chuckled and raised her sword back up.

Dostroth spat in the sand, then closed eyes and began chanting,

"For there will be Great Tribulation

such has not been

since the beginning of the world until this time

no, nor ever shall be.

And UNLESS those days were shortened

no flesh (living thing on Earth) would be saved"

A look of anger settled on Lilith’s face, I will not have your foul mouth quoting scripture, especially not the words of Matthew.

Dostroth stopped and spat again, You know this won’t kill me. I’m immortal like you. I’ll be back and this time with friends…an army of friends…and we’ll be sure to look you and the half-breed up.

Not this time, Lover, Lilith purred seductively.

I looked up to see Lilith’s katana being enveloped by an intense white light that dimmed the still weak dawn sunlight in comparison. Dostroth looked with puzzlement as a shadow of his kneeling body began stretching away from him…. against the sun. He jerked his head around just in time to see Lilith’s sword turn an incandescent crimson; holy fire, a manifestation directly linked to Yahweh himself. Lilith did indeed have high connections, apparently, the highest.

A look of horror spread across Dostroth’s face as he realized Lilith was consigning his soul to complete obliteration by incineration in Holy Fire.

He screamed. Loud. As Lilith said, we would not be seeing Dostroth again despite his assurance to the contrary. There would be no regeneration, a trait common to all immortals whether they be from Heaven or Hell. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men would not be putting Dostroth together again.

Lilith grunted as she whipped the sword through Dostroth’s neck causing him to explode as if he’d been shoved through a wood chipper. Bits and pieces of him flew everywhere, instantly transforming into snot-green ectoplasm as soon as they struck they struck the ground. His soul, on the other hand, geysered skyward to explode in to millions in a sort of a supernatural bottle rocket display.

Demons, or angels for that matter, have wear an ectoplasmic outer covering when they cross over from their supernatural domains into the mortal world. Why? It’s beyond my paygrade and just a fact of life I accept. Maybe ectoplasm is the easiest substance to mold into a human shape to conceal the true appearance of its owner, often too horrifying for the owner to live in or visit the mortal realm without causing a lot of hue and cry. Or maybe it’s a vessel for their life force…their soul as it were. And yes, as I said earlier, even demons have souls. What I do know is their constructed bodies don’t age, and can be bigger, faster, and more resistant to physical damage than their human counterparts. They are damned hard to fight and even harder to kill (well unless you whack their heads off with a katana obviously). I’ve got the scars to prove it. The only good thing is, once they’re dead and decomposed, there are no bodies for the law and press to agonize over. And what happens to the life force that occupied the body? It snaps right back to its point of origin…normally, as Dostroth thought would happen until Lilith intervened. My dear Father would probably have gotten pissed at Dostroth’s stupidity for losing his place in the mortal realm, something highly sought after by all demon spawn, and turned him into a pile of ash anyway.

I pushed that enjoyable thought out of my mind to concentrate on what he’d said. A weapon? Satan has a weapon?

Lilith bent over and spat on one of the largest glops of ectoplasm. A demon quoting Matthew, she spat again.

I wasn’t really listening because my attention was drawn back down to the camp. The Taliban were making frantic preparations to break camp and flee. They’d seen Dostroth fly out and not return, and that was enough for them. But it wasn’t the activity below that had grabbed my attention and made me decide not to call in my strikers; it was a face peering out of Dostroth’s tent. A familiar face, one I see in my nightmares…my Father. What was he doing here? And he has a God-killing weapon. I had a disturbing feeling my nightmares were just beginning.

Chapter Three

Six Months Later

Stirrings

Manila, Philippines

The beast glided through the narrow streets of Manila’s Tondo slum as quietly as the whisper of a gentle night breeze despite being over six feet in height and more than 200 pounds of muscle, teeth, and claws. Covered with hairless leathery skin as black as the full moon shadows it hid in, the beast was all but invisible to its human prey still on the street, some almost bumping into it as they scurried about doing last minute errands before settling down for the night. With a stretch of imagination, the beast could have been called human and its ancestors may have been such in the past. It was bipedal and rudimentary human features could be seen in its face if you looked closely enough, but selective breeding over eons in the bowels of Hell had eliminated any trace of humanity. It was clearly a top of the food chain predator.

The beast sniffed the air and huffed in satisfaction. Rain would come soon, riding in on early monsoon season clouds, but the wet weather wouldn’t pose a threat to his hunting. Nothing could. The abundance of homeless humans sleeping in doorways just off the street made them easy prey, they might as well have been stocked in a refrigerator for ready access. The new day would be greeted by grief-stricken wails and loud cries imploring God for protection. The dead and the missing would be mourned as victims of an aswang, a mythical supernatural shape shifting creature in Filipino folklore. The truth was even more frightening; a hell beast was stalking the inhabitants of the Tondo instead of feeding on the damned in Hell. It had been led across the ever-weakening boundary between the Hell and the mortal world by a high caste demon and then turned loose to wreak havoc as a skirmisher for the invasion to follow. Soon, its brothers would also be set loose to hunt the homeless and poor in other cities. Armageddon was coming and the beast and all his brothers were in the vanguard. There would be worse demons following.

Pacific Ocean

The Hōkūleʻa was a hundred miles into the fourth leg of a trek around the Hawaiian archipelago and then on to numerous islands in the Pacific during the coming year during which it would rendezvous with its sister ship, Hikianalia, returning to Hawaii after circumnavigating the globe.

Launched in 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Hōkūleʻa was built as a performance-accurate, full-scale replica of a waʻa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe.

At only a little over 61 feet, it wasn’t a big ship by any standard, but the seas weren’t rough at the moment and the wind filling its twin large red triangular sails was giving its crew of 15 an exhilarating feeling of what it was like to be an early Polynesian voyager sailing between the island chains in this part of the Pacific.

The Hōkūleʻa was manned by a captain, navigator, medical officer and volunteer academics and students. They were on a mission of cultural revitalization in which they would pull into ports, provide tours of their ship and then speak at local schools and social organizations about the life of the early Polynesian pioneers. They had just spent a week in Apia, American Samoa, and were now sailing to the Phoenix Islands, a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs lying in the central Pacific Ocean east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. Many of the crew had fishing lines in the water trolling for their evening meal, while others were going about the business of manning the sails and cleaning up after the port visit. This was an adventure all knew they would cherish for the rest of their lives and tell their children and grandchildren about.

At about 0900, one of the Hōkūleʻa crewmen, Nohea Kaiʻokamalie, looked up from his fishing pole to survey the miles of miles of ocean ahead of them. It was a view that never failed to humble him, making him feel very small in the overall scheme of the world. Nohea had just been relieved from his 0400-0800 morning watch and was determined to get least a few minutes of fishing in before he had to move onto other chores. Life on the Hōkūleʻa was never dull with such a small crew, everyone was multi-tasked and sleep was sometimes a scarce luxury. His luck had been good so far with a couple of small aku flopping on the deck at his feet. They’d soon be his breakfast and if his luck held, he’d catch a few more for dinner. He was just about to give into hunger and cook his fish when he felt a strong jerk on his pole. He was sure it was another aku and he briefly glanced up to see if the ship was moving into a surface churn marking a school of predator aku feeding on smaller fish. This was what fishermen all over the world lived for, being in the middle of a school of predator fish in a feeding frenzy. They would bite on anything and were fun to catch. Maybe he’d catch not only enough for dinner but for breakfast tomorrow also.

Nohea squinted against the morning sun and spied the fins of hundreds of aku breaking the surface right in front of the Hōkūleʻa. At this close distance, he could see occasional flashes of silver when some of the fish being fed on leapt out of the water trying to escape death, often with an aku hot on their tail. Nohea smiled. It was the food chain in action. The aku fed on the smaller fish and soon, he was going to be feeding on the aku. Just as the Hōkūleʻa was about 50 feet from the churn, Nohea noticed a different dynamic beginning. The aku were now frantically leaping out of the water to get