Advent To Armageddon

 

 

 

I typed in the last few keystrokes and sat back, staring intently at the monitor. A slow smile spread across my face as I viewed the new account balance. Our last job had been hazardous and involved subduing a particularly nasty predator but, by the amount my account had been fattened with, it was a job well worth it.

My name is Mike Dodge and I own and operate a small company of fellow misfits called TightLatch. We specialize in maintaining surveillance on crime-prone areas - areas that experience enough muggings, home invasions, vandalism and sexual assaults to warrant hiring a company like mine - and the activity has ceased because either we apprehended someone red-handed or put enough of the fear of God into them to cause them to move on.  The majority of my guys are like me, retired from military intelligence backgrounds, and I was fortunate to include a Mountie and even a former OPP staff sergeant among my employees.

As I said, this last job had turned out well but it was bittersweet. We'd been minutes too late to save a last victim from a sadistic and vicious rapist. It was really too bad about those nasty series of falls he took before we handed him over to the local cops. As MacArthur once said, "In war, there is no substitute for victory." Little did the arrogant puke know that, after being in business for almost a decade, we had cultivated contacts in some pretty shady places. Like the prison he was being sent to await his trial. I can guarantee him a warm and painful reception, courtesy of an ex-adversary.

I logged off and reached for my morning coffee, taking a big sip and then crushed out a dying cigarette. Idly glancing around and settling on a folded newspaper, I flipped it open and my eyes immediately were drawn to an article halfway down the page. The headline heralded, "Strange Phenomenon In Mid-East Desert Baffles Scientists Worldwide." The article was two long columns and I felt a strange stirring in the back of my mind as I read it.

 Several months ago, an expedition had been excavating the ruins of what the leader, Dr. Samuel Clairmont, claimed to be the fabled cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their mass spectrometer suddenly began reading trace amounts of radiation in the soil and artifacts they'd unearthed.  Subsequent testing and analysis confirmed the impossible and was summed up in a quote by Clairmont - "Based on the evidence we have on hand there is no doubt that a nuclear detonation occurred here sometime in the last 10,000 years."

That was spectacular enough, causing a resurgence of speculation and church attendance. Now it appeared, according to the article, that everyone left for the evening and when the team arrived at their sites the next morning, all traces of radiation had vanished. They could not find a single rad. My mind seemed to open like a giant maw and settle around this truly astonishing event.

Perhaps that was why I sensed rather than heard movement and looked up to see two large men enter my private office without so much as a knock. One blonde, the other with short brown hair, they stood a few inches over my six feet and I estimated their weight at well over 200 pounds easily…big boys. Under their black and blue windbreakers I saw no evidence of weapons, nor did I see any in the numerous other probable places of concealment. I relaxed slightly and decided against palming my Bren Ten from a quick-draw beneath the desk.

I folded my newspaper and began to reach for the phone to press a small button, when the brunette stepped forward and quietly requested, "Please, we do not wish to have our conversation recorded, at this time." I withdrew my hand from the button that would have begun logging our friendly little chat. A tad miffed, I opted for lighting up a smoke, leaning back slightly and indicating with my free hand for them to have a seat. I tapped my cigarette into the ashtray and, when I looked up, they were both staring at me intently. Without thought, I spun in my chair and saw a small red light blink out as I flipped a hidden switch behind a curtain on the wall. When I swiveled around, I caught a curious smile pass between them, realizing as well that they had made no move to sit in the two client chairs.

I inhaled again and waited for them state their purpose. It didn't take long for the dark haired one, who called himself Uriah, to begin to speak and, to this day, I wished to hell I had never have listened. During the ensuing 10-minute monologue, my emotions ranged from disbelief to outright skepticism and, I must admit, even to seriously wondering what kind of recreational drug he was enjoying.  He finally arrived at his request of me and, after hearing it, I was quite literally speechless.

 I heard the outer office door open and then there was a firm knock. My door opened and a man with handle bar moustache and a ponytail stepped into the room, did a quick once-over of our visitors, and then looked at me and raised his coffee cup in salute.

"Top of the morning to ya," he said smiling. He looked again at my two visitors and I made hasty introductions. "Gentleman, this is my second-in-command John MacNeil," I explained. " Mac, this is Uriah and Michael. I think they've come to the wrong place but I want you to listen to this."

I looked at Uriah and requested, "Would you please repeat the last statement you made?"

"Mr. Dodge, that's not fair; that would be taking it out of context. Your commander needs to know everything so he's able to form his own opinion," Uriah interjected quietly but firmly. I could sense an underlying current of energy from him that caused my hackles to rise in an unusual way but I had to grudgingly agree. If they could authenticate even half of what they claimed, this was a fight we couldn't run from. The sudden wave of chaos that head erupted worldwide was no coincidence or mistake.

This time they did respond to my offer of a seat and, with John perched on the corner of my desk, his muscular arms folded across his chest, Uriah began, his strange eyes narrowing. I smiled inwardly as I glanced at my 2IC, who was being deceptively casual in his observation of our guests, knowing that Mac-vision missed nothing.

"This may sound outrageous but please bear with me and keep an open mind. I am not delusional nor am I a crackpot. Tell me something honestly," he began. "Do either of you find particular periods of history more fascinating than others like, say, The Crusades?"

 

 

John glanced quickly over at me and cocked an eyebrow. Over beers on more than a few occasions we had jokingly compared ourselves and our jobs to the Knights Templar. Instead of escorting pilgrims to the Holy Land, we escorted pieces of shit to their just rewards.

"Would you be shocked if I told you that you have both been warrior-monks and that our paths have crossed on many occasions? I come once again to enlist your aid in our fight against the Darkness that is coming. You may not want to believe but we have fought side by side against many adversaries. Your keen minds and the numerous skills that you both possess were garnered from several lifetimes of experience. Tell me, what was your initial reaction when you two first met?" Uriah queried.

John and I looked at other, this time openly amazed. We had met while serving with 2 Airborne Commando in Petawawa and had become good buddies almost immediately, as if we had met but could not remember when. Our friendship has remained strong for over twenty years, each of us able to anticipate the other's next move or thought, which is a necessity in our line of work.

" I can tell by your silence that you know what I say is true. Deep down, in the place that defies logic, you have both been curious, haven't you?" the stranger asked quietly.

I've come to rely on John as I would my arm or leg. In fact, there is a good chance that my life would have turned out very differently had he not shown up magically at my door, shortly after I started TightLatch.

 Suddenly, there was a gentle tugging at the back of my mind and then an explosion behind my eyes. For just a few seconds, I was in the middle of a pitched battle, carving through metal and flesh with a sword that seemed to be on fire. I turned to parry a strike at my head and roared as metal clashed, sending a powerful bolt of pain throughout my body. I reversed my grip and sliced upward with all my might, screaming maniacally. Blood shot like a fountain from my attacker’s exposed neck and before I could do anything further the scene slowly faded, the hoarse cries of the wounded and the predators slipping into nothing more substantial than a nightmare. The strangest part, however, was the glorious feeling of bloodlust that devoured me and continued for some moments after the vision disappeared.

Shaking my head and wincing my eyes, the vertigo that had hit me like a 25-pound sledge gradually faded away. Finally able to focus after what could only have been an acid flashback, I looked at John who seemed to have undergone a similar experience. I noticed his increased respiration but the surest sign was his jaw muscles bulged like a mouthful of walnuts. The look he returned me was haunted.

I looked at Uriah and leveled a finger at him. "Who the hell are you and what the hell did you just do?" I demanded. John had uncoiled fluidly from the desk, took an unsteady step to the side and leaned against the wall. I knew that his level of alert had just gone through the ceiling.

 "What you just experienced is what you might call a cellular memory, a re-enactment of an actual event that you've been a part of. Usually, your spirit or soul only maintains these memories but sometimes, as the physical body reacts to the spiritual or astral entity inside, these memories leak out. I merely gave your spirit permission to allow you to experience it. As for who we are, well..." he began, looking at his silent companion who finally spoke. His voice was deep but pleasant and held an air of command that both John and I recognized immediately.

"Sometimes it is best to be brutally honest and you are both warriors that I hold in the highest regard. You know me best as your patron saint," he said simply, looking at each of us in turn, a not unkind smile on his face.

 

 

John and I looked at each other and the same thought flashed through both our minds. The only one that he could possibly refer to was St. Michael, who is regarded as the patron saint of paratroopers. Each year, we celebrated St. Michael's Day, in honor of the archangel Michael. The padre always took pride in recounting heroic deeds done by God's mightiest warrior in the battle against the fallen one, in Lucifer's misguided attempt to literally storm Heaven. Michael had been the one to gather the legions together for one last successful attack that broke the back of Lucifer's forces, sending them scurrying to lick their wounds in the place that clergy would threaten countless naive and fearful souls with:  hell.

As I looked back at Michael, a question formed on my lips but was halted by a slow nod. All right, you may think it impossibly stupid of me to even consider the possibility but I just got this feeling from the man….As for what he wanted of us, though, the jury was still out. John took a swig of his beer and ran a hand absently over his long ponytail. "All right, out with it, Mac," I said with a mock exasperated huff.

"I gotta say, Brad, that despite not understanding this whole paradox thing, I do know those rag head scumbags and so do you. Those assholes are capable of anything and if someone is going to supply them with a weapon that could destroy two cities, there's no telling the damage they could do. There is an element of timing here that I find uncomfortable," John said forcefully and reached over and snagged my paper.

Turning the pages furiously, he finally stopped, read briefly and then offered the folded article to me, his finger tapping one of the stories. I took it from him and quickly digested the article from page 1 of the financial section. I read with mounting horror that, in five days time, delegates from countries on every continent would be gathered in Toronto for some type of world trade summit.  Israel and the newly established state of Palestine would be in attendance, not to mention the presidents of both the U.S. and Russia and a literal list of who's who in world politics. The security nightmares associated with such an undertaking would be staggering.  I knew from past experience, though, that even the tightest security could be breached by a group of determined and well-funded individuals with the right intelligence and a moment of lost concentration.

I was feeling as though the sky had fallen and Atlas was on holiday. The analytical part of my mind was digesting and compartmentalizing the new information, while the reasonable side was looking for a way that I might be able to pass this particular torch on to someone else. Hoping that I was wrong, I asked them pointedly, "What is it, EXACTLY, that you'd like from us?"

The two warriors regarded each other for a moment before Michael looked directly at me. "It's quite simple really. We have to find and retrieve the explosive device and return it to the past. Our time is short; even now, events are transpiring that shouldn't be. The chaos that is building is exactly what Lucifer and his horde want."

I looked over at John and his returning gaze said, "You gotta be shitting me." I knew how he felt, something like Crockett at the Alamo. There was something missing from this picture, a nagging thought in the cobwebs of my mind, and I couldn't put my finger on it. It was Mac who voiced his thoughts.

"You seem to have a good source for intelligence, as far as names. Why is it that you couldn't follow the bomb through this corridor thing you were talking about? Or intercept it here and send it back. Of course, I'm assuming that you can send it back."

Michael stepped up to the plate. "We're not omniscient. We exist in only one dimension at a time, like you. Also, our molecular structure is incompatible with these corridors. In this war we have had to gather warriors, souls seeded by our Lord, on a billion planets in countless dimensions. He knows the future but is not inclined to share with us on most occasions. That would be breaking the rules, but how can an army fight with both hands at his sides and useless." His voice had turned iceberg cold and I cocked an eyebrow.

I'd been force fed religion until I'd turned 17, and found myself humping my nuts raw in a nasty place called the Operational Training Detachment, three months after my

 

 

17^th birthday.  It made my new freedom difficult to adjust to initially but the one thing that I had had was a long-standing curiosity about and belief in angels. I mean, doesn't everyone have a belief deep down and a desire to know more? As I looked from one to the other of our visitors, I'd reached a partial decision.

Pushing back my chair, hands on desk, I rose and looked into Uriah's steady and confident eyes. I was feeling like Lorenzo Lamas in The Immortal, but without his trusty katana. I glanced sideways at Mac, who was sitting, silent but deadly, and then cleared my throat.

"Before this goes any further, you will refrain from using that soul memory thing without permission on me or my men. If we're going to have the shit scared out of us, we’d like to be able to enjoy it, OK?" I added with a smile at my patron saint and was amply rewarded with a slight grin that strangely sent a tingle of delight to somewhere deep inside me.

"Here's what I can do," I continued. "We have nothing outstanding on the go at present but I have to be realistic. This work is the bread and butter to all of my guys and their safety is ultimately my priority. And I need their support in this. You are, of course, welcome to participate fully in our Status Meeting, which will be in about an hour from now.”

It was our resident Mountie who played devil’s advocate, to nobody’s great surprise. He sat back in his chair and fixed Michael with an intense look. “So, let me see if I understand here. This device, “Level Hand” as you called it, was somehow taken by persons unknown through some type of space /time corridor, from where it was supposed to have destroyed two cities but didn’t, and is now here in our present day? And you want our help on retrieving it. Does that pretty much sum it up?”

The Mountie then swiveled his eyes to meet mine. “Bossman, come on. I’m as open-minded as the next guy but angels? And this crap about two fictitious towns being destroyed thousands of years ago and then suddenly not…Demons posing as rag heads and then stealing some “mystical” device and bringing it here…”

“Perhaps I could help in convincing them,” Uriah interjected forcefully but somehow quietly.

“Not a chance,” I countered quickly. “You’re not gonna use the same thing you did on Mac and me.”

Uriah glanced over at me with almost a look of amusement on his face. “I could give them an idea of what Level Hand actually looks like and it may also render us considerable credibility. There will be a very minor feeling of disassociation but it will pass very quickly.” Surprisingly I received a round of nods, of which I should have known. As a team, we have never been one to back down from a challenge or face a fear. I lifted both palms up to Uriah to indicate that he proceed.

From the side of the room, Michael’s voice boomed, clear and forceful. “This gentlemen, is Level Hand.” A ripping sound seemed to echo on itself and a small sphere of plasma materialized and began to hover, bright bluish tongues of flame leaping from its surface like ejecta from the sun, spinning on an invisible axis.