Battle Angel (Immortal City 3)

“Sir, we’ve just received direct orders from President Linden that you and Lieutenant Commander Montgomery are to be transported as soon as possible to safety at a secure location east of Angel City, where you’ll be further assisting the resistance. Your demon expertise is far more valuable than your tactical skill in this battle. You are recovering from a concussion, and are under mandatory break from flying. In your state—”

“My state is that I’m ready to kick some demon ass. You can’t ground me! I’m fine! I need to be up in the air. That’s where I’ll be able to protect Maddy best. This is a war. I’ve trained my whole life for this.” He rounded on the MP. “We’re going directly to Blake. When he hears about this—”

“Sir, Captain Blake has already signed off on it. The call came from President Linden himself. There are no options, Lieutenant. You have to leave. You have forty-five minutes to get your things ready. You’ll be fully briefed on the helicopter. We are under strict orders to bring both you and Lieutenant Commander Montgomery directly to the president.”

Godspeed.

Angrily, Tom looked up to find Jackson, but he was no longer on the flight deck. The Angel was already gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The flames waved, quivering like a moving wall. They began at the beach and snarled above the rooftops, snapping and crackling in the masked daylight, starting to move away from the ocean and into Angel City.

There had been no warning. No jets flying over, no air raid sirens. The demons were coming by land this time. They would be infesting the city, block by block. They would be methodical. No one would escape.

The steady crack-crack of gunfire came from the front line of resistance: a ragtag group of locals, combined with a squadron of U.S. soldiers who had been stationed in nearby Venice Beach. They were armed with rifles, shotguns, pistols. Anything they could get together.

The tony beachfront properties of Santa Monica had been transformed into a snarl of barbed wire and sandbagged machine-gun nests. A makeshi

ft barricade had been erected with the barbed wire and boards. Snipers were set up in smashed-open windows of multimillion-dollar beach homes, mortars placed in driveways next to the latest BMWs imported directly from Munich. All along this front line of defense, soldiers and citizen militia volunteers alike had been stationed and put into position. They stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to make a stand against the demons.

• • •

From far above in the dim darkness, the entire coastline as far as Jackson could see glowed red and flashed with explosions and gunfire. From the water, like lanterns of doom, he could see the dull black-red smoldering of the demons underwater as they advanced up out of the ocean and onto the beach. As they stepped ashore with their foul, unthinkable claws, they were met with the rapid fire of the machine-gun nests.

This was the Immortal City’s last, desperate stand. Each block would be paid for in blood both human and Immortal.

Jackson soared above with his formation of renegade Battle Angels just behind, regarding the spectacle with wonder. It was quiet up there, somehow, as the Battle Angels flew wing-to-wing in their black armor in the darkness. But it didn’t stay quiet for long.

Jacks pulled his sword out from behind his shoulder. He turned and looked to the Angels aloft behind him, soaring on the cool ocean breeze. Farther out, he could hear the navy’s air support drawing closer. He nodded to Mitch.

“Now!” Jackson shouted, spiraling straight down.

With a great collective war cry, the Angels all drew their Divine Swords and began plunging one by one through the thin clouds into the hell that awaited them on the land below.

The demon army just kept coming. Like some unending nightmare you could never wake from, the beasts kept emerging from the water.

Now on solid ground, Jackson and his Angels fought them hand to hand in the streets. Smashing back and forth between buildings, the Angels wanted to slow the demons, hoping to coax the leader out, exposing itself, as they advanced. They would only have so much time to try to strike at this heart of the demon army. But who knew when that time or opportunity would present itself? Jacks had to trust the resistance to keep trying to track their patterns and home in on a source. Otherwise all—everything—could be lost.

In the air, the military’s support was negligible—unless the demons were somehow forced into the open, the jets and bombers couldn’t get a clear shot. They were strafing and bombing the open beach when the demons were emerging, but all it did was slow them, not stop them. The beautiful Santa Monica beach was becoming pocked with huge bomb craters as the demons moved forward, unleashing themselves on the city.

The battle lines were being pushed back toward Angel City already. How long until they had to make a final stand, Jackson did not know. But he knew it couldn’t be too much longer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tom scornfully looked out onto the flight deck at the helicopter waiting to take him away from his duty. The crew was just waiting for Maddy to show up with her bag, and then he’d be whisked away. He was a pilot in the U.S. Navy, and this was his country’s darkest hour. He felt sick.

He’d been under guard since they notified him of Linden’s decision to take him and Maddy to safety, away from the battle. Tom knew that Jackson had cut this deal with the president, and just thinking about it made him nearly blind with rage. He was supposed to be fighting, not running away. Even if he was supposed to be running away with Maddy . . .

The officer in charge looked at his watch.

“Williams, will you go hurry Lieutenant Commander Montgomery? We were supposed to depart three minutes ago.”

The petty officer saluted and went belowdecks to the living quarters. Tom looked up at the red tinge starting to appear on the horizon near Angel City.

Five minutes later, the officer returned, his face as white as a sheet.

“She’s gone,” he reported. “We can’t find her anywhere. She left this.” The crewman handed Tom a letter.