Free Angels of War (Angels of War Trilogy Book 1) by Andre Roberts

oak tree, and sat underneath the cool shade the leaves and branches provided.
    She expected President Wallace to sit on the fence until a horror showed up at his doorstep, shaking him awake to their reality. Joan did not want to appear as a threat but a solution to the invasion.  

14

    The black cloud over Los Angeles swelled and twisted. The Air Force AWACS fell to the earth in pieces like fireflies and behind the wreckage followed a monstrosity from Hell.  
    Lord Wrath rode upon his bone colored horse from the clouds. He wore armor made from bones over his large skeletal body. He stood nine feet tall. His large skulled head, adorned with horns like a bull, turned about to survey the city with red eyes set in deep sockets. His rusty sword and black shield remained in his grip as he galloped down amongst Los Angeles ruined streets.
    Wrath grounded his beast and dismounted amid the shattered rubble and heavy black smoke. He walked a few steps forward. People cowered before him. The Screamers sat overhead, silent, their black eyes locked on the bleak skies. People lost in shock and disbelief eased from several untouched buildings, while some continued to escape the chaotic scene. Others approached the place where the oil tanker sized crater sat.  
    Black smoke oozed from the sinkhole like tentacles. A few took pictures with cell phones, oblivious to the monster hidden beyond the smoke. Wrath raised his battered blade into the air.  
    “Behold.” His voice boomed across the city like a trumpet blast. Windows shattered and car alarms wailed. “The kingdom of Hell is at hand, bow before your master.”  
    People ran from Wrath.  
    The foolish eased toward him like cats, unsure, yet mesmerized by the giant horror. The ground trembled. Masonry crumbled to the earth in chunks. The dark clouds above the city darkened even more, and the Screamers ringed around downtown L.A. began to speak in unison. Their voices rattled as if filled with shrapnel.  
    “Your great master is here to free you. The day is at hand, choose your lord with care, for only one will be victorious, and he rises from the earth.”
    Wrath drove his sword into the black macadam. The ground cracked and a jagged rent split the street in half, cars and people tumbled into the fissure. Their screams echoed away as they fell into the black chasm. A tremendous rumble emerged from deep underground and grew into an earthquake. Several buildings collapsed from its ferocity, and many people caught in the tumultuous destruction died.  
    Wrath rose into the air. He spread his big arms wide and threw back his head.
    The quake built momentum, the liquefied rubble parted. Black iron formed in a half circle broached the ground and rose from the crater. A pattern played within what began to take form as an immense iron circle. The pattern turned out to be a pentagram.
    Beneath the iron pentagram, an off-white monolith drove up and lifted the pentagram high into the harsh air. Another round layer emerged, larger than the top layer. The edifice lifted from the earth like a six-tiered cake. Each tier bordered with battlements, murder holes and black flags decorated with red pentagrams. Dark stained-glass windows lined the tower walls.  
    A few windows glowed in a deep blood red. The second tier from the bottom held a balcony made from human bones. The bottom-tier, the largest, came with a metal drawbridge, closed and black with huge iron bolts driven into its thick frame.  
    Hell’s Cathedral towered above the tallest buildings within the city. At two thousand feet, the monstrosity commanded dominion over all. The off-white walls spilled powdered bone into the tense air. Dust and smoke surrounded Hell’s Cathedral in thick clouds. Once the foul haze settled, the structure took on its nightmarish shape.  
    The cathedral, birthed from Hell’s bowels, came with live stone gargoyles whose black eyes rolled about in their heads. They sat perched along the battlements like