A four-star general in full uniform rushed over to Makeda and Nat. “I’m General Carter,” he said and motioned behind him.
Nat and Makeda had been so busy fighting they hadn’t noticed a crowd of soldiers, military personnel, and reporters watching from a distance.
Carter moved closer and said, “I’m with the Order of Light. I’m your Pentagon contact. If you don’t mind, I think I should be getting you out of here.” On cue, a military helicopter approached and landed a few yards away. “This chopper will take you to a secure airfield where you will board your jet and fly back to Light City.”
“Thanks,” Makeda said.
Carter looked at the dead demon. “No, thank you.” He shook their hands. “I’ll be seeing you shortly.”
He led them to the chopper and saluted them as they climbed aboard. Makeda saluted Carter back and waved at the soldiers and the crowd as the chopper took off. The crowd clapped and cheered.
Once in the air, Makeda told Nat, “So you know, I didn’t need your help. I was having fun.”
“Looked like he had you running to me, and you couldn’t get to your sword,” he pointed out. “And how the hell did I hear your voice in my head?”
“Because I was talking to you,” she stated as a matter of fact.
He frowned. “I didn’t see your lips moving.”
She looked directly in his eyes and telepathically told him, “As long as we make eye contact, we can speak telepathically. It’s called thought dropping.”
“Thanks for telling me,” he thought dropped back.
She looked away and said, “See how easy it is.”
“Is there anything else I should know about our connection?” Nat asked.
“Not right now,” she stated flatly. “And for the record, I don’t need my sword to defeat a demon. I’m the—”
“I know, I know, you’re the Host,” he exhaled. “Well, I was made to be your mate. That means I’m going to protect you while you protect humanity. Got that!”
Makeda shot him a look of disbelief, and then her face softened. “I got it.”
She took his hand into hers and laid her head on his shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lamont paced inside a cell made of six-inch thick plexiglass that sat in the center of a huge empty room somewhere in Wille Von Macht’s compound. There was a camera mounted in a corner, aimed at the cell. Lamont tried to pry his way through the cell door to no avail. The door was controlled by an electronic touch pad instead of a knob. Lamont banged on the walls with everything he had and then gave the camera the middle finger. A moment later, Tess and Wille Von Macht entered.
“What do you want with me?” Lamont yelled.
One of the boys punched a password into the touch pad and another boy stepped into the cell. Lamont stepped back with fear in his eyes.
“What do you want?” Lamont asked.
The boy held out his hand and aimed it at Lamont’s neck, and Lamont grabbed his neck as if he was choking and fell to his knees. The boy then pulled a summoning blade from under his shirt and stabbed Lamont in the heart. Lamont coughed up blood and fell dead.
The boy eyed Lamont’s body and said, “Show yourself.”
Thick black smoke filled the cell and the boy stepped out the cell and shut the door, which automatically locked. The smoke swirled around in a tornado and then cleared, leaving Izzy standing there. Izzy looked down at Lamont’s body and then looked up and saw Tess and the boys. He tried to open the door and realized he was trapped in the cell.
“Tess,” he shouted. “What the hell are you doing?” He banged on the plexiglass.
Wille Von Macht said, “You are our leverage.” They turned to Tess. “It’s time to give my brother and sister a call.”
Tess shot Izzy a devilish smile and followed the boys out the room.
***
Saleena and Simon stood in Simon’s office watching news reports on Nat and Makeda’s encounter at the Pentagon. Simon then pulled up a recording of the battle and paused it on a frame of Makeda and Nat attacking the last demon.
“They’re good,” he admitted.
“So much for your super demon warriors,” Saleena spat.
Simon said, “The warriors will still wreck havoc on humanity. They can punch through buildings. They breached the Pentagon. They are just no match for the Host, at least not one on one. They have to learn to fight together. I take it our brother released them to measure them against the Host. We would do much better.”
“Let’s not forget,” Saleena added in agreement. “The demon warriors also don’t have swords of fire. We do.”
Simon’s phone rang and he answered, “Simon Clash.”
Tess replied, “I have a message from Wille Von Macht.”
Simon chuckled, “Funny, I thought you’d be somewhere mourning your husband.”
“No,” Tess snapped. “What’s funny is Saleena’s going to be mourning Izzy if she doesn’t do as Wille Von Macht commands.”
“What?” Simon asked skeptically.
“I’m sending you a video feed now,” Tess said.
A feed of Izzy trapped in the glass cell popped onto Simon’s screens.
“Izzy!” Saleena cried out.
Simon put Tess on speaker phone and asked, “What do you want?”
Tess said, “Saleena must engage the Host out in the open.”
Saleena shouted, “You worthless traitor, I’ll engage you out in the open.”
Tess laughed. “If you survive the Host, I’ll gladly give you that chance.”
“Screw you,” Saleena yelled. “You can’t hurt Izzy anyway. You kill him and he goes back to the smoke. You engage the Host.”
“Wrong,” Tess taunted. “I have a sword of fire,” she boasted. “You have 72 hours to draw out the Host and engage her. Fail to do so and I will personally annihilate your precious reaper.”
The line went dead and the feed of Izzy left the screen. Saleena softly whispered, “Is it possible?”
Simon admitted, “The sword of fire can annihilate a reaper, and so can a sword of light. And there is no doubt the other seed has several swords of fire.”
Saleena inhaled. “I guess I’m going to engage the Host.”
Simon protested, “Wille Von Macht is only using you to study the Host. We haven’t seen enough of her to engage her personally.”
“She hasn’t seen anything from us either,” Saleena reasoned.
“Fine,” Simon said. “If you are going to do this, we have to select a battlefield.” He looked into Saleena’s eyes and said, “You know they’re probably still going to annihilate Izzy.”
Saleena swallowed down her emotions. “We just need to play along and buy time until we can find Wille’s base and get Izzy out of there.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Simon muttered.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Makeda and Nat were back in the war chamber with the six council members. They all watched the screen as President Steve Harding addressed the nation from a podium in the White House press room with General Carter and several other Generals standing behind him.
“Today there is no longer a need for metaphors or analogies when we talk about evil,” the President began. “Today we saw the true face of evil. That was not a movie. Those were not props or costumes. Today the world changed forever. Today our petty political and cultural differences were rendered irrelevant. Today the evil of hell crossed over and boldly took a shot at humanity. But that’s not all. Today we also witnessed the emergence of two champions who stood and fought for us. Unfortunately, I don’t know what lies ahead, but intelligence has indicated that there are many more, dare I say it, demons like the ones who attacked the Pentagon just hours ago. We have been expecting something like this for some time, and we do have a special division in the Department of Defense that will strategize a line of action,” he
cut his eyes at Carter. “With that said, I introduce the head of that division, General Stanley Carter,” he announced and stepped aside.
Carter stepped up to the microphone and cleared his throat before he began. “My name is General Stanley Carter, and I am heading the initiative to ward off and defeat the devil’s efforts to transform earth into a living hell. Keeping with our national tradition of freedom of religion, this initiative in no way relies upon any particular religious belief or doctrine. The two beings you witnessed fighting the good fight tonight are part of an order called the Order of Light, which also has no particular religious doctrine. The evil that threatens us threatens all humanity, despite color, creed, or nationality. I will be working closely with the Order of Light, which includes coordinating offensives against demons with them. Again, I want to make it clear, this initiative in no way goes against our principle of freedom of religion. The demons you saw tonight are real, and we seek to defeat the evil coalition they are a part of. We do this in the name of freedom and human rights. Thank you very much.”
The President waited for Carter to step away from the podium, and then he stepped back up and said, “General Carter and the Order of Light have the full support of myself and congress. We are sure we will defeat this new evil. We have triumphed in the face of evil before, and we shall do it again. In the mean time, I expect Americans to go on living their lives as normal as possible. We should still go to work tomorrow and send our children to school. In fact, our new enemies could perceive any change in our daily behavior as a triumph on their part. Let’s not give them the pleasure. If by chance you should come across a demon, you should dial 211. That is a new emergency dispatch service set up specifically for this new threat,” he looked directly into the camera and said, “Our enemies will not win. God bless the United States of America, and God bless humanity.”
Sean cut the screen off and said, “It’s official. The war between good and evil has begun.”
Alice boasted, “And we’re lucky enough to have a human/angel hybrid and the son of an angel on our side.”
“The son of who?” Nat asked.
The six council members looked at Nat, and Mya asked Makeda, “He doesn’t know?”
“He will now,” Makeda said and twisted her lips.
Nat chuckled, “So now my father was an angle.” Makeda’s eyes darted at Sango’s sword and Nat smacked himself on the forehead. “Sango,” he muttered. “Why didn’t he say something?” He turned to Makeda. “Why didn’t you or Tobias say something? Don’t you think I had a right to at least confront him about being my father before Eshu split him in half?”
Makeda said, “It was not meant for you to know at that time.” She beheld his face. “You’ll see him again soon. I promise, okay?”
“How?” he asked softly.
“Just trust me,” Makeda whispered.
Nat inhaled. “I trust you.”
Makeda took Nat’s hand and told the others, “We need to retire to our living quarters.” Bret smiled and said, “It would be my honor to take you there.”
Sue wrapped her arm around Bret and they led Nat and Makeda out the chamber. The phone rang after they left and Mya answered.
“Hello?” Carter said on the other line.
“Hello General Carter,” Mya replied.
“The President would like to meet with Makeda, Nat, and the council as soon as possible,” Carter stated.
Mya cut her eyes at the others with a sly grin and told Carter, “Nat and the Host will be preoccupied for the next day or two.”
“Preoccupied?” Carter asked. “We are in a state of emergency.”
“The Order of Light has certain protocols that Makeda and Nat must follow in order to be effective in the field,” Mya explained trying her best not to giggle. “Please don’t call back for two days, unless it is an emergency.”
Mya hung up and she and the others burst into laughter.
“Protocols?” Bill asked while laughing.
“I didn’t lie,” Mya pointed out. “Nat will not be aware of his true potential until he and Makeda, um, copulate.”
“Damn,” Sean said. “Nat took out those two demons on the roof like it was nothing; imagine what he’ll be like after they...what’d you say? Copulate.”
Alice agreed. “Wait until Nat and Makeda start using their powers.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “The devil’s seeds have no idea what they’re up against.”
Mya spread her arms out at the screens. “And we have a front row seat to all the action.”
***
Nat and Makeda’s living quarter was a spacious luxury suite. From the plush carpet to the walls, and everything in between, there were shades of sky blue and white. The place gave off a calm, soothing vibe. Nat and Makeda hit the walk-in shower as soon as they got there. They slowly washed every inch of each other’s bodies, admiring each other’s beauty along the way. After showering, they lay naked side by side on the bed and held each other’s hands while staring up at the ceiling.
“You know what we share is divine, don’t you?” Makeda asked.
“I guess so,” Nat answered. “I mean, this is our destiny, right? To be together?”
Makeda ran the fingers of her free hand across her stomach. “We are soul mates. We have to be together.”
Nat rolled over on his side to face her. “That’s true, but we didn’t know that when we first met.”
Makeda rolled over onto her side to meet his gaze. “I fell in love with you at first sight before I knew I was the Host.”
“I didn’t know you were the Host either. I was attracted to you as Sheba,” he said as if he was trying to convince himself of something. “You were just an assassin back then, and I fell for you.”
“So,” Makeda started. “It was fate and destiny, but we chose to fall for each other, right?”
Nat nodded. “You weren’t given to me, I chose you. I wanted you.”
“I wanted you too,” Makeda confessed.
“So what would have happened back at your place had we never run into Simon’s demon lord?” Nat asked softly.
“The same thing that’s about to happen right now,” Sheba answered and kissed him passionately.
Sheba rolled onto her back and Nat gently climbed on top of her. They kissed and touched each other as Nat sank the hand of his desire into the glove of her yearning. It was a perfect fit. They swam into a sea of pleasure and united every fiber of their beings in a way that announced there could no longer be one without the other. They would no longer be the same afterwards, and humanity would be better off because of it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Thirty-nine year old Inisa McQueen sat in her cramped office at the Delaware Institute for Young Adults with Autism flipping through a newspaper. She was beautiful, but plainly dressed in an off white blouse with a black skirt and black flats. She also wore no makeup nor jewelry, except a thin silver chain with a small crystal charm, which was all her job’s dress code permitted. She had graduated top of her class from Delaware State University and earned a Master of Social Work with a minor in psychology before her and her BFF’s, Amanda, Cindy, and Monica took positions at the Institute. Her girls each had Masters Degrees in Education and landed teaching positions while she signed on as the Institute’s lone counselor. The Institute’s mission was to prepare students for an independent adulthood. Many of the students suffered from the mildest symptoms of autism. On the one hand they showed little interest in others, which made them appear asocial, often fell into trances of repetitious activities, such as continuously flicking a light switch off and on, and had very little speech abilities and nearly no social understanding; while on the other hand they had outstanding visual-spatial skills, which allowed them to recognize and solve anything associated with patterns, and picture perfect memory when it came to anything visual. For the most part the school’s twenty
students, young men ranging from ages fifteen to seventeen, were calm and cooperative. However, there were those rare occasions when one of them went into a fit, and that’s when the Institute’s teaching staff called on Inisa. Students usually avoided eye contact like it was the plague, but they seemed to embrace making eye contact with Inisa. What was even more amazing was that she and the students appeared to communicate through eye contact. No matter how angry or how misbehaved a student grew, simple eye contact with Inisa calmed and settled the student. She had a way with the students that astonished both teachers and parents alike.
Inisa carefully read an article about the Host and the war between good and evil for the third time and then tossed the paper on the desk and nervously ran her fingers through her hair. She shook her head in bewilderment and grabbed the paper so she could read the article again, but there was a knock at the door. She quickly hid the paper in a drawer, stood and straightened out her skirt, and strolled over to the door and opened it to reveal a set of parents and their sixteen- year-old autistic son.
“Mr. and Mrs. Springs,” she greeted before turning to the boy, who kept his head tilted down to his right with his eyes glued to the floor. “It’s good to have you back Randle?”
“He hasn’t been—” Mrs. Springs started and then stopped in shock as Randle lifted his head and looked at Inisa.
Inisa smiled at Randle and he smiled in return. “You want to come in and sit down?” she asked him.
Randle responded by walking into the office and sitting on the first of the three chairs in front of Inisa’s desk. After sitting, he then turned and looked back at Imsa.
“You can have a seat too,” she told his parents as she made her way around the desk.
Mr. and Mrs. Springs kept their eyes glued on Inisa as they sat. Mr. Springs glanced at Randle, who was now back to looking at the floor, and then turned back to Inisa. “I still can’t understand how you do that?”