Case 5 - Ep. 3: Heavenly War Propaganda

Heavenly War Propaganda by Beki Yopek

Haloxite rounds exploded behind me and I fanned my wings out too late. The Reaper’s screeches pierced the cacophony of gunfire, tanks, and aircraft roaring below and above us. I forgot all about the fallen angel I was pursuing, forgot about The Battle of Amiens in full swing on the French countryside, and banked hard in a u-turn. Avarice and Rage, two of the Septuplets working for the Pneuma Coalition, flew after The Reaper with their one-shot pistols trained on him.

The Reaper would not die because of my screw up.

Wings pumping, I pelted after the two Septuplets and triggered the Blood Magic stuck to my throat under the crimson blouse. I sucked in lungfuls of air saturated with odors of gunpowder and blood, then screamed, “Prudence, to The Reaper, now!”

The picture of a chugging train stuck to my throat guided the Blood Magic and souped up the words to a hundred forty decibels. Everyone’s horns and halos were intact, so I wouldn’t be causing permanent eardrum damage no matter how much I yelled. Slowing them down was all I could expect.

Every being in the skies-Septuplets, fallen angels, and myself included-sagged in mid-air, stunned at the second overwhelming burst of sound in five seconds. Ebon smoke swirled up from The Reaper’s robes when I caught sight of him, the remains of his leg and foot that one of the Septuplets had shot off. 

I recovered first and flapped hard toward Avarice. Her dark lace dress was torn at the knees and she flew like she was walking on a runway at a modeling show, swaying her hips and flashing leg. Avarice lagged a few feet behind Rage and his shirtless gray beefcake self, so I surged forth, grabbed Avarice’s blonde hair in my right hand, and set off the Blood Magic on my right bicep. The political cartoon of the charging bull stuck under the sleeve guided the spell and I hurled Avarice toward the earth at a right angle to the battlefield. She smashed to the mud a hundred feet down, but leapt back into the air, protected from all but haloxite by her horns.

Since I’d lost my focus in chucking Avarice to the earth, both stilettos I’d carried moments ago had fallen to the ground before I realized it. Great. Now I had no haloxite, and Rage was reloading his one-shot pistol. 

Hot fear chilled its way through me and I rode the wave of it, soaring after The Reaper as he fled from Rage. In the hands of a demon or an angel, brimstone and haloxite rounds went off all at once if we fired one shot. Something about the magic in our veins screwed with the gunpowder and caused it all to kersplode, even the rounds in a magazine or a pocket. How the hell was Rage re-loading? 

I pounded air in an arc toward a hilltop forest. It was the same forest I’d been chasing that fallen angel into. When did we get turned ar--

Tar black wings and a scarlet halo smacked into me as hard as an R.A.F. airplane. The fashion-less fangel had crept up on me, probably after giving Rage and Avarice more haloxite rounds. He wrapped me around the ribs and yanked downward. My wings tangled with the fallen angel’s and we plummeted, the yuck of too much cologne filling both nostrils. I jammed my hands up between my ribs and his forearms, then twisted hard to the right, channelling the Blood Magic on my bicep. One of his hands lost the hold and I beat both wings to break free. The second I slipped his grip, he butted me in the face with his halo. 

It pierced my horns’ protection and ground against my nose, breaking it and snapping the bone to the side. Orange blood sprayed out of me onto his halo and I cried out with the pain. I lost track of where I was and tried to trigger Blood Magic to amplify my yells again, but the blood against my throat was dry and the picture had fallen loose. 

A single bayonet made of haloxite zipped down in front of my eyes and I seized the non-pointy end. Prudence’s telekinetic self flew underneath me a second later, caught me under the arms, and hoisted me upright again. One second later she was off, flapping her honey colored wings and tearing after The Reaper and Rage. Pain blinded me for another few seconds, and I oriented on the forest a dozen yards away. Then I searched the skies for that fallen angel. He’d hesitated when Prudence was near, but he started to dive for me again headfirst, his red halo aimed straight at me.

I grinned, smeared fluid from my nose onto the bayonet’s ends, then flared guided and unguided Blood Magic. The unguided spell let me shove any object with my blood on it forward or backward, and I got the choice to let the Newtonian kickback affect me or not. Yay magic. I launched the bayonet sideways into the fangel’s vermillion skull donut, and it caught in the middle of it like the cross of a do not enter sign. 

The fallen angel’s holey blazer and leather pants rocketed at me and he raved, “Jack Te-Konos is honored to kill you.”

Then I shoved the unguided spell forward using the increased strength of the guided spell on my right bicep.

His halo yanked him in the opposite direction so fast that his entire body became a wet towel. He flew. Away. Dragged by the bayonet I’d jammed in his halo. Haloxite ammunition tumbled from his pockets as he careened into the distance. I lost sight of Third Person Jack seconds later and flew into the woods after The Reaper, Rage, and Prudence. 

Allied marines leapt over logs, took cover behind trees, and rooted out German gun emplacements with clusters of gunfire from multiple directions. I whipped through the trees, endorphins racing through me and dulling the pain. The Reaper led the pack and swatted backhand blows at Rage’s arms with Seversoul. Rage snagged one of Reap’s horns and slammed him into a tree where he fell in a heap to the forest floor. Rage dipped to the ground some yards away and landed in a thick copse of trees and shrubbery.

Avarice touched down next to Rage and he morphed into an exact copy of Avarice, complete with the torn dress, the hair, and the sweater cows. I’d forgotten about the Septuplets’ white collar superpowers. Just like Prudence and the Lucky Seven, each Septuplet had one to go with whatever magic they’d gone to college for in their seriously long lifetimes. Rage looked like himself until anyone looking at him got angry. Then he’d appear as the person that enraged each viewer the most. Red flecks swam in my vision and that demonic instinct for unrestrained violence threatened to rip control out of my hands.

Marines charged up the slope behind Avarice and Rage, cheering with victory at storming the German army’s gun emplacements at last. Both Septuplets unfurled their wings and pounced on the humans, slaughtering dozens with their wing claws and their horns. I swooped in a J shape past where The Reaper and Prudence were picking themselves back up, then pivoted mid-air and swung my right foot out in a flying side kick. I hit one of the Avarices and she flumped to the ground among human corpses and fresh souls. Life force from the newly dead flowed into her and I cursed at myself for letting her steal more thanks to my loss of control. 

I pulled up and flapped back to Prudence’s side to regroup, reaching down to help the injured Reaper with his foot. 

He wasn’t there. 

The snap of robes and the swipes of a scythe came from the direction of the fallen Septuplet. Reap hovered over the Septuplet on the ground and drove Seversoul into its chest. One Avarice burst into smoke and disappeared into the air among the trees. The other Avarice screeched, “Lawbreaker. You slew a benevolent Septuplet and signatory of the Acheria Conference. The Seraph Police Department will hear of your treachery.”

I readied more unguided Blood Magic and made to fly after Avarice, but Prudence’s hand clamped tight on my shoulder. “Don’t. The Pneuma Coalition wants the law against us. The Reaper needs surgery at Abel Memorial Hospital. We must plaster Heaven with news of the war if we hope to prevent this rampant soul thievery.”

Three thoughts whirled in me as I watched Avarice flee. Did The Reaper kill Avarice or Rage? Would any angels choose to help us, or would Prudence be forced to draft angels? And what form did Rage take in The Reaper’s eyes to make him so pissed he’d abandon what we agreed on at the Acheria Conference of 1880?

Case 5 - Ep. 2: Heavenly War Propaganda

Heavenly War Propaganda by Beki Yopek

True demon-versus-angel combat feels a lot like 1918 at The Battle Of Amiens. American and Allied infantry advanced on the German army like a wolf pack sensing weakness. The British Expeditionary Force plowed forward with tanks and made it rain artillery on the Germans’ heads. Royal Air Force planes bore down on the exposed enemy and dropped phosphorus bombs by the hundred.

Soaring alongside The Reaper and Prudence, I gazed hundreds of feet down at the countryside of northern France. Smog and the scents of torn flesh enveloped the entire battlefield, making the landscape southeast of the city of Amiens smell like home. The Allies slow-rolled over the German troops and flocks of demons stayed behind to mooch off the dead souls both sides left behind. Fallen angels, their halos glaring red, swooped among them and stole life force from the newly deceased humans. 

It was our legal and moral prerogative to kick some ass and harvest some souls.

I dipped underneath The Reaper and flapped alongside Prudence. She was one of the Lucky Seven, a heavenly virtue in the flesh. Her full-moon halo hovered behind her head the way they do in those fancy-pants paintings of saints. Five-eleven, pixie cut brown hair, tan skin, and honey-gold wings and eyes to match her halo. She wore tight ivory sashes around the hips and bust, and nothing else.

“Hey Prudy,” I shouted over the artillery going off below us. “You showed up half-naked to a tank fight. Is that prudent?”

Her hand shot out and gripped the lapel of my blazer before I’d finished the question. She snarled, “It is important to deny The Reaper’s enemies any advantage. Clothing your opponent can grip is detrimental.”

I barrel-rolled and slipped out of the blazer, then snagged the sleeve and whipped it around Prudence’s wings. Her feathers crumpled and she started to fall toward the warring humans. “I feed targets to my enemies. Makes ‘em more predictable.”

A haloxite bayonet floated over Prudence’s head and sliced my blazer down the middle. It fluttered away behind us and Prudence re-gained her altitude, laughing. “Stop trying to comprehend one of the Seven, Avaline. It isn’t prudent for you.”

Throwing my own wordplay and fighting techniques back at me. Guess that’s why she’s The Reaper’s day shift bodyguard. It didn’t help that the Lucky Seven had a superpower to go with their divinity. Well, it did help, but--that’s--no, scratch that out. 

Prudence was freaking telekinetic, and she only used it in small doses. The Septuplets I’d ran into fighting the Pneuma Coalition each had one power too, and that’s how Avarice had smacked the bejeezus out of me in the past. Prudy chose to spread the hurt around instead of letting loose like the Septuplets did. Maybe that was why we were losing this war against the Pneuma Coalition and their demon thieves. We needed something bigger. 

The Reaper waved us closer and we darted in on either side of him. His voice was a cannon blast. “We cannot continue to support The Soul Fountains alone. Today, we destroy the Coalition’s thieves and send them a message. Then we recruit angels to track their movements and alert us to soul thieves.”

Gritting my teeth, I made sure the top button of my crimson blouse was buttoned. Then I pointed down at the warzone, where a forest on high ground was growing nearer. “There’s no time for heavenly war propaganda right now. We should harvest souls from the outside in and destroy any thieves. We’ll stay together so any Septuplets in hiding can’t pick us off while we work.”

“That would take too long,” Prudence yelled back. “The souls will still be there once we’re done finishing each individual thief.”

“If we waste time hunting thieves one by one, we allow the others to steal life force we’re bound by law to harvest.”

“When we destroy all thieves first, we send a message.”

“And can you be in thirty places at once?”

A grin of mad scientist proportions cracked Prudence’s lips. “Watch and be envious.”

Prudence patted The Reaper’s shoulder, then dove toward the chaotic area south of the hilltop forest. Multiple haloxite bayonets hovered around Prudence as she flew, and I blinked, confused as to where she’d hidden them. Probably in the sashes. The bayonets were chipped or sheared in half, and a few still had pieces of rifle attached to them. Huh. Those would have been demon-slaying equipment for humans or summoners. Where had she gotten them?

By the time I shook the questions away, Prudence had already flown in two east-to-west passes among the Allied and German infantry. The demons were too focused on stealing life force to see her coming, and the confusion of war only helped Prudence. Bayonets lanced out from her shining form and pierced demons by the dozen. Smoke clouds burst from the demon flocks while they died, and with each sweep, Prudence ended at least forty or more thieves. 

I flapped close to The Reaper and drew a brimstone stiletto and its haloxite twin from the belt sheathes at my back. Sure, it’s important to leave The Reaper exposed in the middle of the Great War. My internal cynic’s ego got a stoke when three fallen angels flapped upward away from the battle toward me and The Reaper. The lead fangel wore a torn sport coat, a shirt with a ruff, and ripped leather pants to go with his tar-black wings and scarlet halo. His cronies had even less dress sense. 

I’d prepared for this fight with a little Blood Magic: a picture of a train blaring its horn stuck below my windpipe with my own blood, and a political cartoon of a charging bull stuck to my right bicep. The blood was more than half dried now, but it’d stay liquid long enough for the Blood Magic to flow so I could trounce these clowns. When the lead fangel saw me raise my left hand at him, he balked and slowed down. The other two kept coming, haloxite sabers waving like fly swatters in The Reaper’s direction. 

He raised Seversoul to strike at the same moment that I let Blood Magic flow. I hollered, “Back off,” and the magic amplified my voice tenfold. It also kinda made me sound like a train whistle. Shrieking sound waves stunned the fallen angels long enough for The Reaper to swipe Seversoul through one, and for me to impale the other with the brimstone stiletto. Their peerless leader u-turned and fled toward the forest at the top of the hill. 

“Get back here,” I screeched, diving after the fallen angel. He was close enough to finish off, and Prudence was soaring toward the trees on the hilltop. The Reaper cackled and looped downward in wingless flight, harvesting the souls Prudence had freed up for him. I gripped the brimstone knife in my right hand and let the Blood Magic surge, seeking to finish this idiot and get back to The Reaper’s side. 

When Rage and Avarice streaked out of the forest and over my head, I was already flying too hard to change direction. They blitzed The Reaper, drew pistols, and fired haloxite rounds.

Case 5 - Ep. 1: Heavenly War Propaganda

Heavenly War Propaganda by Beki Yopek

My hackles go up whenever The Reaper returns late from a shift. I leaned against the haloxite rim of the Soul Fountains and glanced at my Hades watch. Half past two in the afternoon on a Friday. I’d waited for half an hour to start our usual soul harvesting shift, and he hadn’t shown.

I adjusted my bra underneath the pinstriped blazer and glanced at the usher and banker angels bustling around me. Life force rushed upward out of the souls crossing the waters, ascending like a waterfall that thought it was opposite day. That life force splashed into the ten-story-high marble-and-haloxite bowls where it always overflowed and cascaded down into the next series of bowls. Banker demons flew up and attached boxes of empty mote coins to the bowls.

Ivory coins of crimson and vanilla scraped against the haloxite brims as they rolled into the life force, soaked it up, and slung themselves out again. Streams of full motes hovered into bins on the desks surrounding the Fountains where banker demons would allocate them to governing bodies and corporations according to Seraph Police Department regulations. Drained souls exited at the back of the ground-level bowl and usher angels led them to a series of marble carvings labelled with signs.

Eight square slabs with eight-foot circles of carved words stood sentinel on the left side of the forty-story Motery Center building. Two Seraphs from the Seraph Police Department guarded the keyholes carved into each slab, and the signs above them read in succession, “First Circle,” “Second Circle,” and so on. There was no carving for the Ninth Circle. Period.

The usher angel at the front herded souls toward the leftmost slab and announced, “Acheria. Two hundred seventeen souls.”

Both Seraphs reached into the pockets of their slate-gray uniforms and withdrew objects. Seraph Left touched the SPD badge he’d withdrawn to the keyhole on the left side, and Seraph Right jammed a brimstone key into the right keyhole. A pinprick of iridescent light bloomed in the center of the carving, and Seraph Right read something off the clipboard in his other hand, bending down and using his halo as a light bulb. “Hell, First Circle, Acheria, I. R. Conference Center.”

When he finished speaking, the pinprick swirled outward to fill the whole carving with iridescent light, creating a hell divide between here and the I. R. Conference Center in Acheria. The usher angel shoved all the souls into the hell divide, then flew in himself to guide them to whatever First Circle pit they were destined for. Ushers all along the Motery Center’s ground floor did the same with their clusters of souls, announcing destinations in Hell when they approached the eight hell divides on the left. Fewer ushers and souls approached the five pearlescent heaven lanes on the right, but that was how it always was at the Soul Fountains.

Our business proved that Hell, Earth, and Heaven could keep going even though there were more sinners than saints. But when The Reaper was late like this, a metallic fear in my chest got me wondering exactly where this would all go if he--

Screeching erupted from the fortieth story of the Motery Center and I craned my neck upward to squint at the only balcony with a hell divide. The Reaper shot out of it alone with his hood down, swinging his ram’s horns around like a crazed bull that took the word “toro” as an insult to its mother. I unfurled both wings and shot upward, checking that I had the Blood Magic folio in my blazer pocket on the way. Something crazy must have happened, and my heart rapped against my ribs as I ascended.

The Reaper swerved down and around the Motery Center building. He crashed onto his office balcony and slashed the door into two pieces with one swing of his scythe. Shudders flooded me, and I flew on knowing they wouldn’t stop soon.

What the hell happened to piss Reap off this much?

Landing on the balls of my feet, I drew out the folio and flipped to the ‘strength’ section just in case. I stepped over the cloven door and stood in the frame, watching as The Reaper bellowed at the ceiling and slashed Seversoul straight down at the floor. The two-toned blade bit into the wood and he left the haft jutting up into the middle of the office. With both hands, he gripped his horns and roared at the weapon with all the air in his erm, robes.

A snicker escaped me in spite of things and as soon as he quieted down, I said, “You want to wreck those file cabinets while you’re at it? I’d love to start all over with these case notes.”

He seemed to come to his senses a little and stood to his full seven foot height. The Reaper pulled his hood back up and stepped toward me, his voice a magma flow. “The Pneuma Coalition got Prudence. She fell less than an hour ago.”

I kept the folio open. “Prudence, the morning shift bodyguard? She’s a heavenly virtue in the flesh. No way they have the skill to murder one of the Lucky Seven.”

The Reaper reached back and wrenched Seversoul from the floor. “I said fell. Red halo. Fallen angel. Fell.”

Before I knew I’d done it, I had my haloxite lancet pen out of my pocket and in my other hand. I jabbed a finger with it and smeared the blood on the picture of female bodybuilders I had on top of the ‘strength’ section. The shuddering still hadn’t stopped, but I said anyway, “With a full-moon halo like hers? She’ll look like a big-ass stop sign is stalking her.”

Bones grated on wood as The Reaper gripped the scythe’s haft. “You are equating the choice of sin over virtue to slapstick comedy.”

“More like absurd comedy. Prudence with a bright red halo behind her head? It can’t be fashionable to look like a sunburnt lobster.”

Laughter sizzled out of him and he rounded his desk, placing Seversoul atop it with a clank. “Perhaps we should finish today’s writing before we harvest souls. That would allow us a chance to cool down and ponder what to do about Prudence’s fall.”

“How level-skulled of you. I’ll find another layer of protection for you and all the bodyguards soon. Are you planning on getting a new bodyguard or telling anyone else what happened?”

“Yes and no. Now we both have an axe to grind against Avarice. Do you remember when we got involved with World War I the second time?”

"That was when we drafted angels," I said. "War propaganda in Heaven and all that."

The Reaper pointed at me with an ebony hand. “The Volunteer Guardian Angels were designed to foil the Pneuma Coalition, prevent angels from falling, and get the Seraph Police Department to commit more resources to us. And it contributed to the problem I’m seeking to remedy.”

I sprang up and pulled pen, paper, and folders out of the nearest file cabinet. So it was Avarice that made Prudence fall. It would be up to me to find new ways to protect The Reaper. I’d dig up more on what actually happened when Reap had calmed down. And when my own shaking stopped. I held up a pen and clicked it. "How did Heaven make things worse?"