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“Move, move, move!”
“Look alive, people! This is not a drill!” a voice yelled on the intercom. “This is real!”
Jacks and Tom approached and were now standing next to Maddy and the captain. Jackson’s commanders, including Mitch Steeple and Steven Churchson, quickly followed suit, in gear and ready for action.
Jackson turned to Maddy. “Lieutenant Commander?”
She blushed. “The demons are headed here.” She pointed at a space maybe three miles from the main line of carriers and battleships on the screen. “If the jets are coming from the east, then you can surprise them from the south.” She looked around nervously at the military crew and the Battle Angels. “If that would work, I mean.”
“Straight out of the Naval Academy, Montgomery,” the captain said appreciatively with a nod.
Jackson looked at his Battle Angels. “Okay, you heard her. That’s where they’re headed. Let’s do this.”
• • •
Black clouds were amassing in the distance, hovering near the sinkhole. Maddy knew that just beyond the clouds, the Dark Angels maneuvered in demonic darkness.
Looking down from the bridge, Maddy watched as first one, then another, then another fighter jet screamed off the flight deck of the carrier in a deafening roar of jet exhaust and g-forces. Finally Tom’s jet took off. He looked up through the bridge window at Maddy and smiled at her, just like when he had left the first day on the carrier. His F-18 started to rumble like the beginning of an earthquake and then was off before Maddy could even blink, the steam catapult sending it flying at 165 miles per hour.
The Battle Angels had already departed, soaring low along the water and swinging out wide of where Maddy had seen the Dark Angels arriving in her vision.
Anxiously, she looked out with a pair of binoculars the captain had given her. Then she saw the clouds starting to shift, and she knew the demons were moving. The jets were headed directly toward them.
Missiles began launching off the wings of the jets in the distance, screaming through the sky and exploding against the line of demons. And then she saw it, Jackson and his Angels emerging from a cloud bank that flanked the Dark Angel army.
• • •
Jackson flew up and over the fray. The Battle Angels had surprised the demons; the trick had worked with Maddy’s help. He almost laughed at how foolishly the demons had practically sauntered into their trap. The Dark Angels had gone straight for the navy fighters, and then the Battle Angels had emerged from the darkness on their side, swinging Divine steel that sparkled gold in the filtering sunlight. They’d slaughtered at least three demons in short order.
But now the Dark Angels were regrouping.
Boom. Another missile exploded into a Dark Angel, stunning it for a moment. The mushrooming orange missile fire comingled with the demon’s own shimmering black fire-skin, and its very form seemed to tremble and turn to static. Jacks flung himself overhead toward the demon, unsheathing his Divine Sword as he lunged. He steadied himself and in an instant had the blade pointed right at the Dark Angel’s ugly head.
The demon screeched as the blade pierced into its skull, and a brief white light flashed off the sword as Jacks dispatched the Dark Angel. Before the attack, Jackson hadn’t known the swords could do that. But he wasn’t complaining.
Jacks gave a thumbs-up to the pilot, who was already circling around to target another cluster of demons. But before he even dropped his hand, a demon sheared off the back tail of the fighter jet like a bolt of dark lightning, sending it plunging toward the ocean in flames.
Cursing, Jackson started racing to make the save. But suddenly he could smell it. He had to roll backward and bank directly left as another demon appeared from the clouds to pursue him. Unless he had ejected, the pilot was lost.
The demon was fast. Jackson was giving it everything he had to try to lose the tail, but this Dark One wouldn’t budge. It was slowly gaining on him. Jacks remembered Sylvester’s theory, about the demons evolving, about their leader and their plan. Jacks started to sweat. Then he realized there were two demons right on his tail.
Suddenly, the roar of a fighter jet reminded him he wasn’t alone.
The jet was on the demons’ tail, trying to get a missile lock on them.
“Come here, you ugly suckers . . . ,” the pilot murmured, but it was too difficult to fire a missile with Jacks so near. “Too close! Switching to guns.”
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop—the rapid machine-gun fire tore into the line of Dark Angels, slowing them down just enough.
Jackson’s wings suddenly dropped a shadow over the demons. He had managed to flip all the way up and backward as the storm of bullets hit the demons. His Divine Sword felt like it was being moved by its own righteous energy as it bore down on first one demon, then the other. Flashes of white lit the sky.
• • •
All along the battle line ahead of the battleships and aircraft carriers, fighter jets screamed back and forth across the sky. Bombs exploded,
battleships unleashed everything they had, and the air was thick with smoke, demons, and Angels. This was real.
Suddenly Jacks looked farther up toward the clouds growing in the sky and saw a Guardian struggling with two demons midair. Was it Steven Churchson?
