Tears of Heaven - Excerpt

The copper-tang filled her nostrils.

With a shark-like response, there was a rush of blood and adrenaline in Del’s ears that sounded like the ocean as it came in for high tide.  A red mist descended over her eyes.  She ceased to see as she normally did, catching only this or that as she focused her attention.  Instead, she saw everything from the general to detailed.  Her vision was that of a battle-lord for whom there was no other life.  The large picture and the minutia were thrown together, and sifted by a mind that was honed to the strategy of both the moment and the immediate future.  Large and small, Del knew the outcome of this battle even before she joined it.

The joy of it and the triumph soared inside her.

The absolute glory that was in her strength, her might, her power sang in her blood.

It was only small wonder that her cousins, the Nephilim of old, had sought to carve empires; smaller wonder that most of them succeeded.

Succeeded for a season.

Del turned the corner and sighted her prey.  She took in the entire scene in an instant, but didn’t stop on any of the details.  To do so might cause her to pause, whether in horror or fear or anger or sorrow.  Such emotions at this a crucial moment had killed better than her.

She had no intention to add to their ranks as the honored dead.

Two more steps and her SIG .45s came up in her hands.

They barked their greeting and threw fury at the rogue.

The first two bullets whizzed past the rogue’s head, only millimeters from the target and impacted on the concrete behind her, exploding as they ended their brief but fiery lives in a concussion of sound and shattered wall.  Del didn’t hesitate in correcting her aim, and sent three more bullets to thunder home, striking the rogue in the head, throat and chest.  Del moved forward as the rogue dropped behind the altar with a howl of pain.

From the right came robed figures.  Each was clad from toe to tip in a garish yellow, rendered more so by the obscene red glow.  Blades were produced from under cassocks and growls issued from out of cowls.

Del didn’t have time to aim.

She tried to shoot low, to wound without killing.  Her guns barked and spat fire.  Robed figures fell as scythed wheat.  Something big and heavy cracked against her back.  The blow wasn’t much, in her current state she barely registered any pain at all, but it distracted her enough that she paused.  A knife, wickedly curved and partially serrated, slashed through her thigh.  It cut cloth and drew blood.