“Then we’re all dead. All of us, the whole Angelic Host. The humans will pull out all the stops and use every weapon they have. Believe me on this, they have some doozies they’ve only just started to deploy. But, it’s unlikely they will lose, very unlikely indeed. Raffie, part of your job is to make sure Jesus is really beautifully misinformed. He’s got to go in dumb. Don’t let him be clever.”
Rafael-Lan nodded. Michael looked around the room again. “Anything else?”
Charmeine-Lan hesitantly put her hand up. “Maion, she told me that she will be going out to Lemuel’s tomorrow night.”
“Then we have our starting point. I’ll make sure I’m over at Lemuel’s palace tomorrow. I can find some League of Holy Court business that will keep me there.”
“You will move quickly for her?” Charmeine-Lan was upset at her part in this, She knew it was necessary but she didn’t like it at all. “She’s a nice girl underneath it all. Don’t leave her longer than you have to.”
Michael-Lan nodded. “I’ll get it sorted as fast as possible. Until then….”
DIMO(N) Briefing Room, Pentagon, Arlington V.A.
“The invasion is coming?” The question from Defense Secretary Gates was dead neutral, without inflexion. The long-awaited invasion from Heaven had to be due soon and when it came it would be a perfect example of the cliched mixture of problems and opportunities. It would mean a major battle on Earth but would also be the way the route into Heaven could be opened.
“Oh yes, its coming.” Norman Baines was firm on that point. In some ways, this would be the culmination of his life’s work. The end of days, the final battle. The millennium. It had lots of names and he’d studied all of them for years. Now, he was going to see them. A truly unexpected privilege. “We’ve had all seven bowls, we’ve seen off the Leopard Beast and the Scarlet Beast. Now, it’s the Lamb Beast, the Dragon and the invasion. Not necessarily in that order.”
“I don’t suppose the ancient mythologies say where?” Gates thought that was probably too much to hope for.
“Well, Sir, yes they do. The plains of Megiddo, Armageddon. But, Abigor’s host tried that and they walked into the best army we had fielded. they may try somehwere else as a result. But, all these prophecies are centered around the Middle East. If it isn’t one part, it’ll be another.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway. Dave Petraeus has the HEA waiting in Hell. As soon as the Heavenly Host portals in, he’s going to portal three army groups in all around it. It’s going to be a slaughterhouse.” General Bannistre was as non-committal as everybody else.
“General, Sir, I must warn you. The Heavenly Host is a lot more powerful than Abigor’s Army was.” Baines cranked some numbers quickly in his head. It’s likely to have more than twenty million angels in its combat formations.”
General Bannistre grinned sympathetically. “Don’t sweat it son. Dave blasted his way into Hell and stormed it with 30 divisions. We’re landing three hundred and eighty divisions around the Angelic Host. We’ll only be outnumbered four to one. And there’ll be no holding back this time, we’ll be hitting them with nukes, gas, whatever floats our boat. We weren’t ready for Abigor, but we’ve had a year, 18 months nearly, to get ready for the Host.”
“And they’ll pay for lying to us, deceiving us, betraying us.” President Obama’s voice from the end of the briefing table was calm and measured. “Our ammunition stocks are adequate?”
“They are indeed Mister President. We’re back to where we were in 2007 at last. Adequate, not over-generous but the production lines are rolling fast. We won’t need so long to replace this lot after we’ve fired it all off.”
The laughter than ran around the room had a vicious edge to it. “And so we should, with a 1.6 trillion dollar defense budget.” That put a sad note into Obama’s voice, There was so much he had wanted to do, so many changes he wanted to make. Instead, he was presiding over the biggest defense budget in American history, one that was likely to cripple the economy for decades to come. All his plans had come to nothing and he was all too sure he would go down in American history as a wartime leader only.
“Why haven’t we seen the Lamb Beast or the Dragon yet Baines?” General Bannistre was worried about that.
“I don’t know Sir. But I have an odd theory. We’ve been assuming that they were giant monsters like the Scarlet Beast and the Leopard Beast. But suppose they’re not. Suppose, just for one, Revelation is allegorical on this one point. The Lamb Beast speaks like a lamb but breathes fire when it has to. Doesn’t that sound like Jesus? The lamb of God and all that. And the Dragon Beast, of omnipotent power, could well be Yahweh himself. It’s only a theory of course but it would explain why they haven’t turned up yet.”
“What happens if Yahweh doesn’t invade? Do we have a plan B?” Secretary of State Clinton put the question that was on the back of everybody’s mind.
“We do Madam Secretary but we don’t like it. It involves punching portals at random until we get lucky. Of course, we could run into something we can’t handle very easily that way. That’s why we’ve avoided doing so up to now.”
Hillary Clinton nodded. “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
Norman Baines made a comic play of going faint and grabbing a chair for support. “Madam Secretary don’t ever say that. HE might hear you.”
Chapter Fifty Eight
The Montmartre Club, Eternal City, Heaven
It had been a long time since Maion-Lan-Lemuel had been outside the Club. At first, she had wanted to leave, she had even half-heartedly planned to escape, but the opportunity had never really presented itself. So, she had resigned herself to her new life and tried to adapt to it as best she could. In the process, she had learned of its advantages and they were not just restricted to the supply of white powder that she needed so badly. As her familiarity with her new life had grown, she had come to enjoy being the center of attraction and desire. Then of course, the lessons she had been patiently taught by Charmeine-Lan and the other angels who worked at the club. Lessons that she had used to catch Lemuel and persuade him to become her patron. She knew very well that Lemuel’s patronage of her was part of some larger scheme Michael was concocting but to her that didn’t matter. All that she cared about was that she had a much better life now than anything she could have hoped for earlier. It hadn’t seemed so at the time but Michael-Lan had done her a great service.
She closed her eyes briefly and then checked herself in the great mirrors that marked the entry to the Club. She checked her hair to make sure that it was styled to perfection in a manner that Lemuel found particularly becoming. Her make-up was perfectly in place and that alone was a mark of how far she had come for few female angels used it. Her robe was new, perfect and draped around her just so. She checked her jewelry to make sure it was all items that Lemuel had given her. A quick turn showed that her wing feathers had been groomed and arranged to perfection. She nodded, she was looking as near-perfect as she could be and was that meant she was honoring Lemuel properly.
“Don’t worry, you look fine.” The voice came from behind her and she turned carefully to face the speaker. Leilah-Lan-Charmeine was standing there, complete in what Maion thought of as her professional outfit. It was as different from the traditional Angelic robes as was possible, all of it black leather with dress and spiked boots glistening with metal buckles. Her wing feathers had been dyed black as well and the general effect was intimidating. Which was its purpose of course.
“So do you, you look… different.” Maion stumbled, looking for the right word for she knew that Leilah was one of Michael’s close associates.
Leilah giggled. “I know what you mean. Still, its what my particular clients like.” Then she got very serious, very quickly. “Be careful Maion, things have changed in Heaven since you were outside the club last. There was another bombing last night, at a the Temple of Enduring Adulation. Eight angels and a lot of humans killed.” And one of the angels was a major-league Yahweh supporter. One of many killed in the bombing campaign that is rocking The Eternal City. The League of Holy Court still hasn’t worked out that mixed in with the miscellaneous dead are all of the most prominent Yahweh loyalists. But then they wouldn’t, not with their chief investigator besotted with you.
