Chapter 2
Bill stumbled but caught himself on Lucifer’s desk. He looked up frantically. What’s going on? Lucifer already had one finger to his ear.
“Not again! Talk to me.” Lucifer shouted into the air. His eyes widened and he looked Bill directly in the eye.
“We’ve got to move,” said Lucifer hurriedly as he launched himself upright, sending his chair flying backwards.
“What’s going on, Satan!” demanded Bill as he struggled to keep pace with Lucifer. The pair rushed themselves across the long room.
“We’re under attack. Father Time has troops within the realm,” intoned Lucifer darkly.
“Why did you say not again?” asked Bill.
“Ah, well this actually happens quite regularly. Father Time suffers from long-term memory loss, so he mounts the same attack once every few months or so,” explained Lucifer.
Bill blew a sigh of relief, “Oh, so you’re unconcerned? That makes me feel a lot better.”
Lucifer shook his head, “Nothing could be further from the truth. Angels’ lives are at stake.”
“What if he wins?” shivered Bill. Could Father Time be the greater of two evils?
Lucifer looked over at Bill, “Then we lose. All of us,” he said pointedly. More explosions were heard from outside. The sound of shouting and something crunching was carrying through the walls. “Err, is it too late to volunteer?” asked Bill.
“Know how to use one of these?” asked Lucifer as he tossed Bill a bow and quiver of arrows that was hanging on the wall.
“How hard can it be?” asked Bill as he strung the bow between his knees.
Lucifer raised his eyebrows skeptically, “Careful with that.” Lucifer braced against the door, and with a large groan it opened to the overwhelming clamor of battle: metal grinding against metal intermixed with bloodcurdling screams of pain. Debris flew through the open door from a nearby explosion.
“We’ve got to rendezvous with Plato. Stay low,” yelled Lucifer.
“Not so fast,” said Bill as he aimed the bow at Lucifer.
Lucifer turned and stared dully at Bill, “Don’t aim that in here. Surely this is something we can settle after—”
His sentence was cut short by an explosion that knocked out part of the wall, sending Lucifer to the floor and causing Bill to stagger. Bill regained his senses and peered out the hole, his jaw tightening as he saw what was rolling towards them.
“You gave me a bow to fight tanks?” yelled Bill.
Lucifer stood up and dusted himself off, “That is a fine bow. A gift from Odysseus. Are you going to stand there gaping or are you going to use it?”
Bill raised the bow at Lucifer again and hesitated. Lucifer stared at him directly in the eye.
“Time to make a decision,” said Lucifer with a hint of venom. Without hesitation, Bill let the string go, sending the arrow spiraling toward Lucifer. With blinding speed, Lucifer stepped to the side and caught the arrow mid-fight.
“You were supposed to decide not to shoot me,” said Lucifer with a hint of shock.
Bill gulped. He reloaded the bow, pointing it at Lucifer again. Bill glowered at Lucifer and twisted his mouth into a scowl.
“You can try that again if you’d like,” offered Lucifer, “or we can call it a truce for now and try to avoid being blown up. What do you say, Bill?” offered Lucifer. Bill glared at Lucifer and eased the bow’s string.
“Good, choice, Bill; I’ve got bigger fish to fry,” said Lucifer as a high pitched sound filled the air; a shell zoomed right between Lucifer and Bill and exploded on the far wall, carving out a hole the size of a large elephant. Lucifer pulled out a tablet and began entering commands and talking rapidly into the air. Bill prayed there was someone on the other side of Lucifer’s Google glasses that was listening.
“I’m not done with you, Satan.” Bill shifted the bow to aim at the first tank in his line of sight and raised the bow’s angle forty-five degrees. “This is a waste of time; I need a real weapon,” Bill complained through gritted teeth as he fought against the bow’s string. He let go. With a twang, the arrow rocketed forward, sailing over the heads of charging angels. Time seemed to slow as Bill watched the arrow soaring through the air majestically. Then, it landed twenty feet short of the tank. Father’s Time’s soldiers marched—actually they floated; they appeared to be giant jellyfish—alongside the tank and looked at the arrow curiously.
“This is useless!” Bill said as he threw down the bow. Just then, a missile fell from the sky directly on top of his grounded arrow, blowing the tank to bits and sending the nearby jellyfish soldiers flying through the air with muffled gurgling screams.
“Painting arrows for aerial missiles. Highly effective against armored targets,” Lucifer said as he picked up the bow, “Pick your targets carefully. And like I said, don’t aim it in here.”
Bill stared wide-eyed at the mushroom cloud billowing upward, “I…There were people in there…I just…”
“Snap out of it man! Those aren’t people! Turritopsis nutricala: the immortal jellyfish. Sold their souls to Father Time, and now they can revert back to their polyp stage in old age. If we don’t help them die, they’re not like to do it themselves,” yelled Lucifer as he stepped through the crumpled sheet metal wall into the daylight. Bill followed. Black noxious smoke raged around them. Bill and Lucifer raised their forearms to protect their eyes, coughing. The crunching sound was louder; Father Time’s tanks rolled noisily over the wreckage of their destruction. The jellyfish soldiers, tentacles waving rabidly, were rushing in beside the tanks. Above, white-clad angels threw javelins at the tanks, the explosive charge at the tip detonating upon impact. Other angels ‘painted’ targets with arrows, followed by blinding explosions. The casualties were heavy on both sides though; the shells of Father Time’s tanks were carving Heaven’s landscape into Swiss cheese and severing limbs from bodies. Father Time’s immortal jellyfish were picking targets without care using devices that resembled hair-dryers.
“Chaaarrrge!” yelled an angel above the melee. Bill followed the baritone yell to see Sisyphus, sword in one hand, javelin in the other, wrecking havoc among an entire unit of jellyfish. With blinding speed he whipped his sword around, slicing through the gelatinous heads of two of Father Time’s jellyfish. Sisyphus took another jelly through the heart with his explosive javelin, sending chunks of rubbery flesh flying through the air as it detonated. Sisyphus ran forward at another jellyfish soldier, wings beating furiously to bring his sprint to impossible speeds. His halo was a golden blur. With a loud whine of metal, Father Time’s tanks aimed their massive batteries at him. Explosions rained around Sisyphus, but none could find their mark. He gritted his teeth against the shrapnel and lunged forward. The lone jellyfish raised its hair dryer device and fired. The device let out a low moan and the jet of air in front of it shimmered, hitting Sisyphus directly in the torso. Time seemed to stretch; his torso slowed to a stop—but his arms, legs, and head kept moving at the same speed, and disconnected from his body. They landed on the ground in front of his torso—which was still frozen in mid-air—in an unceremonious bloody heap.
“Mother of God!” yelled Bill in shock.
“Time-pulsers,” said Lucifer grimly, “Slows time for the thing it hits. Nothing else. Inertia is not your friend in this battle.” Lucifer unbelted a throwing knife and whipped it directly at the jellyfish. The knife lodged itself in the barrel of the jelly’s time-pulser as it aimed the weapon at them, causing the pulser to implode and suck the jellyfish inside of it. The time-pulser and jellyfish winked out of existence in a puff of smoke.
Lucifer wiped his brow, panting lightly, “A brave angel. Sisyphus will be sorely missed.”
Bill was about to join Lucifer’s lamentation when a shadow seemed to envelope everything around him. “Uh, Lucifer, I hope this is some plan of yours…” said Bill, pointing upward. Lucifer followed Bill’s finger to see a massive golden pocket-watch floating in mid-air above Lucifer’s warehouse-office, part
ially eclipsing the blazing white sun. The pocket-watch, easily the size of a large barn, rotated on its axis slowly. The minute, second, and hour hands pointed to 12:00.
“Midnight,” Lucifer whispered, “so it has begun.”